UCSB    LIBRAR 


THE  TRAGEDIAN; 


AN  ESSAY  ON 


THE   HISTRIONIC   GENIUS 


THOMAS   R.   GOULD. 


NEW  YORK: 

PUBLISHED   BY  HURD   AND   HOUGHTOX. 
3&fbersflie  33vess. 
1868. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1868,  by 

THOMAS  R.  GOULD, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massa- 
chusetts. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED  AND  FEINTED  BT 

H.  0.  HOUQHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


To 

EDWIN    BOOTH, 

WHOSE    RARE   GOOD    GIFTS    HAVE  ALREADY  WOJT    FOR  HIM 
THE   UNDIVIDED   ADMIRATION   AND   RESPECT  OF 
HIS   COUNTRYMEN, 

rijrs'c   iHrmnrtals 

OF  HIS  ILLUSTRIOUS  FATHER,   ARE   AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED, 

BY   THE    AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

RICHARD  III 37 

HAMLET 49 

SHYLOCK 73 

IAGO 81 

OTHELLO 92 

MACBETH H8 

LEAR 134 

CASSIUS 151 

SIR  GILES  OVERREACH 153 

LUKE 158 

SIR  EDWARD  MORTIMER 160 

BRUTUS I66 

PESCARA 172 

REUBEN-  GLENROY 175 

OCTAVIAN 176 

BERTRAM 177 

PIERRE 179 

THE  STRANGER 180 

THE  TRAGEDIAN 181 

AN  INCIDENT 182 

A  DIALOGUE 184 

THE  TRAGEDIAN 188 


THE   TRAGEDIAN. 


DECEMBER,  1852. 

TEN  days  ago  a  private  letter  from  New 
Orleans  assured  us,  that  the  great  actor  of 
the  age  had  arrived  from  the  "  Golden 
Land,"  was  then  playing  an  engagement  in 
that  city,  and  appeared  in  remarkably  good 
health. 

Swiftly  following  this  intelligence  —  which 
gave  us  hope  soon  again  to  "  have  sight " 
of  the  Proteus  of  Shakespearean  character 
"  coming  from  the  sea,"  and  hear  once  more 
the  strange  inward  music  of  his  voice  — 
came  last  week,  with  "  spleen  of  speed,"  the 
telegram  that  he  had '  died  on  the  passage  to 
Cincinnati. 

Our  first  feeling  was  the  pang  of  a  per- 
sonal friendship,  suddenly  parted.  Then 
came  the  thought  that  a  great  artist,  the 
greatest  in  his  sphere  in  our  day,  had  passed 


6  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

away;  and  finally,  vivid  images  and  emo- 
tions, won  from  that  wide  range  of  tragic 
character  in  which  he  so  truthfully  lived, 
came  crowding  into  our  memory. 

JUNIUS  BRUTTTS  BOOTH  was  born  in  Lon- 
don, May  1, 1796.  He  appeared  on  the  Lon- 
don stage  at  the  age  of  twenty,  but  has  run 
the  greater  part  of  his  dramatic  career  in 
this  country.  He  was  of  short  stature,  but 
his  presence  and  action  were  types  of  manli- 
ness and  power.  His  face  was  cast  originally 
in  the  antique  Roman  mould  ;  and  even  many 
years  after  the  untoward  accident  which 
spoiled  its  classic  outline,  it  presented,  on  one 
occasion,  when  we  were  sitting  by  his  side, 
a  singular  resemblance  to  the  portraits  of 
Michael  Angelo. 

No  language  can  do  more  than  recall,  to 
those  who  have  seen  him  in  his  most  vital 
moods,  the  terrible  and  beautiful  meaning  of 
his  look  and  gesture ;  or  the  charm  of  his 
massive  and  resonant  voice.  For  voice, 
gesture,  and  every  fibre  of  his  wonderful 
organization,  were  subordinated  to  a  genius, 
which  laid  hold  of  and  expressed,  with 
absolute  sincerity,  the  radical  elements  of 
character  ;  and  gave  play  to  its  minor  mani- 


THE    TRAGEDIAN.  7 

festations,  with  the  spontaneous  freedom  and 
variety  of  nature. 

We  well  remember  how,  in  former  times, 
we  hungered  and  thirsted,  in  the  intervals  of 
his  absence,  after  the  intellectual  beauty  of 
his  personations. 

His  great  popularity,  which  time,  accident, 
and  eccentric  habits  seldom  availed  to  di- 
minish, seemed  owing  mainly  to  those  fire 
blasts  of  a  volcanic  energy,  that  power  of 
instant  and  tremendous  concentration  of  pas- 
sion, which  was  one  constituent  of  his  genius. 
Yet  it  was  curious  to  observe  a  crowded  and 
tumultuous  pit,  with  its  new  comers  strug- 
gling for  some  "  coigne  of  vantage  "  in  the 
doorways,  noisily  careless  of  the  sorrows  of 
King  Henry,  but  hushed  in  a  moment, 

"  Still  as  night, 
Or  summer's  noontide  air," 

as  the  grand,  but  subdued  and  self-commun- 
ing intonations  of  Richard's  opening  soliloquy 
fell  upon  their  ears. 

In  the  cumulative  and  energetic  evolution 
of  character,  which  forms  the  basis  of  his 
fame,  the  subtler  traits  of  Mr.  Booth's  delin- 
eations were  often  overlooked ;  but,  to  our 
thinking,  it  was  this  marvelous  delicacy 


8  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

especially  which  made  his  acting  "  the  feast 
it  was."  It  was  this  rare  power  which  ena- 
bled him  to  follow  the  lead  of  Shakespeare's 
imagination,  in  its  most  secret  windings  and 
its  airiest  flightsv  and  found  him  the  sole 
artist  of  our  time,  worthy  to  present  in  living 
form  the  characters  of  Hamlet,  lago,  Othello, 
and  Lear. 

Thus  much  have  we  felt  impelled  to  say, 
in  the  hurry  of  the  hour,  in  grateful  memory 
of  one  from  whom  we  have  drawn  deep  de- 
light and  instruction ;  while  we  reserve,  to 
some  future  day,  an  ampler  notice,  worthy, 
we  trust,  in  some  measure,  of  his  exalted 
representative  genius. 


1868. 

AN  actor's  posthumous  fame  is,  by  the 
nature  of  his  art,  visionary  and  traditional. 
The  sculptor's  thought  lives  after  him,  in 
lines  and  masses  of  imperishable  marble  ;  the 
painter's  in  simulated  forms  and  "  sorcery  of 
color "  on  his  canvas ;  and  from  the  impish 
figures  of  the  composer's  score,  a  cunning 
hand  may  at  any  time  evoke 

"  The  hidden  soul  of  harmony." 

But  when  a  great  actor  passes  away,  nothing 
remains  excepting  grand  and  delicate  images, 
which  in  silent  hours  crowd  the  memory  of 
those  who  have  seen  him,  and  the  report  of 
which  finds  a  fainter  and  still  receding  echo 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  not. 

In  this  view,  in  grateful  testimony  to  the 
rare  delight  his  personations  have  afforded ; 
and  in  the  hope  of  giving  body  to  the  vision, 
and  language  to  the  common  sentiment  of  his 
appreciators,  we  proceed  to  record  our  im- 
pressions of  Mr.  Booth's  genius  for  dramatic 
impersonation. 


10  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

And  here  we  feel  we  cannot  advance  one 
steady  step  without  first  considering,  and 
haply  disposing  of,  Charles  Lamb's  thought- 
ful essay  "  On  the  Tragedies  of  Shakespeare, 
considered  in  their  fitness  for  stage  repre- 
sentation " ;  in  which  he  evinces  the  most 
penetrating  sentiment  of  the  quality  of 
Shakespeare's  genius,  and  denies  with  equal 
emphasis,  but  less  discretion,  the  power  of  the 
stage  to  reproduce  it.  The  sophistry  of  his 
argument,  as  we  apprehend  it,  lies  in  his  ap- 
plying to  Shakespeare's  dramas  the  most 
subtle  imaginative  tests,  and  thereupon  as- 
suming the  entire  absence  of  the  imaginative 
faculty  in  the  representation  of  those  dramas 
on  the  stage.  Let  us  review  his  theory  ;  for  if 
Shakespeare  cannot  be  represented,  it  is  idle 
to  assign  the  quality  of  genius  to  any  actor. 

Lamb  tells  us  that,  as  he  was  taking  a 
turn  in  Westminster  Abbey,  he  was  struck 
by  an  affected  figure  of  Garrick,  the  player, 
under  writ  by  some  fustian  lines  about  the 
equality  of  genius  between  Garrick  and 
Shakespeare  !  Scarcely  need  we  affirm  our 
sympathy  with  Lamb's  condemnation  of  their 
"false  thoughts  and  nonsense."  They  con- 
tain sufficient  provocation  to  set  off  the  ec- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  11 

centric  genius  of  Elia  at  a  smart  pace  in  the 
opposite  direction. 

We  can  follow  him  in  his  lucid  exposition 
of  the  inadequacy  of  the  stage  to  represent 
supernatural  scenery ;  and  the  consequent 
failure  of  all  attempts  to  reproduce  the  fairy 
creations  of  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream," 
and  "  The  Tempest."  These  require  for 
their  due  appreciation,  an  imagination  sub- 
tilized by  quiet,  and  airily  abstracted  from 
the  presence  of  material  objects. 

But  when  he  proceeds  to  distinguish  the 
stage  as  equally  incapable  of  embodying 
single  human  characters,  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation plays  a  conspicuous  part ;  or  who  are 
possessed  by  supernatural  emotions,  as  Ham- 
let, Macbeth,  Lear,  then  we  part  company 
with  the  ingenious  essayist.  The  possibility 
of  their  adequate  representation  by  living 
man  is  involved  in  the  fact  of  their  creation 
within  the  sphere  of  humanity. 

No  doubt,  Lamb's  sensitive  spirit,  devel- 
oped and  nourished  in  the  morning  light  and 
dew  and  fragrance  of  the  English  classics, 
was  often  shocked  by  pretenders  to  the 
much-abused  and  misjudged  fine  art  of  acting 
that  swarmed  the  London  theatres.  Even 


12  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

Edmund  Kean,  no  pretender,  but  an  original 
and  genuine  artist,  may  have  swelled  the 
current  of  this  feeling. 

Hazlitt  cherished  a  passionate  admiration 
for  Kean ;  but  he  was  a  jealous  lover,  and 
frequently  chastised  his  favorite.  Kean  dis- 
appointed him  in  Lear.  The  critic  quotes 
the  passage, 

"  0  heavens, 

If  you  do  love  old  men,  if  your  sweet  sway 
Hallow  obedience,  if  yourselves  are  old, 
Make  it  your  cause;  send  down,  and  take  my  part! 
Art  not  ashamed  to  look  upon  this  beard? 
0  Regan,  wilt  thou  take  her  by  the  hand?" 

and  adds,  "  One  would  think  there  are  tones 
and  looks  and  gestures  answerable  to  these 
words,  to  thrill  and  harrow  up  the  thoughts, 
to  '  appall  the  guilty  and  make  mad  the  free ' : 
or  that  might  create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of 
death  !  But  we  did  not  see  or  hear  them. 
It  is  not  enough  that  Lear's  crosses  and  per- 
plexities are  expressed  by  single  strokes." 

Lamb  retorts,  "  What  have  looks  and 
tones  to  do  with  that  sublime  identification  of 
his  age  with  that  of  the  heavens  themselves, 
when,  in  his  reproaches  to  them,  for  conniving 
at  the  injustice  of  his  children,  he  reminds 
them  that  '  they  themselves  are  old ' 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  13 

Lamb  enforces  his  abstract  point  by  italicizing 
the  word  "  heavens."  But  the  attentive 
reader  of  the  play  will  see  that  Lear,  the 
grand  old  pagan  king,  uses  this  word  inter- 
changeably with  "gods"  —  the  gods  wrere 
persons  if  the  heavens  are  not. 

The  respective  printed  articles  in  which 
these  opposing  views  occur,  are  the  evident 
outcome  of  a  foregone  conversation.  We 
can  fancy  Hazlitt  coming,  on  a  Wednesday 
evening,  hot  from  the  theatre,  into  that  con- 
gress of  wits  and  good  fellows  then  assembled 
at  Lamb's  lodgings  ;  uttering  and  controvert- 
ing opinion,  with  fierce  and  fitful  eloquence ; 
then  disappearing,  in  order  to  write  one  of 
those  papers  on  Kean's  performances,  which 
was  to  lighten  from  his  firefly  page,  on  the 
dull  world  of  London,  in  the  "  Chronicle  " 
of  the  following  day. 

Lamb  might  have  added,  and  with  equal 
pertinency,  to  his  question  about  looks  and 
tones,  what  have  words  to  do  with  that 
sublime  identification  ?  Words  are  arbitrary 
signs.  Tone  is1  their  living  spirit.  Tone  is 
the  direct  utterance  of  the  heart  and  the 
imagination.  We  hold  with  Hazlitt.  We 
have  heard  tones  equal  to  the  expression  of 


14  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

the  grandest  words  of  Shakespeare.  They 
ring  in  the  chambers  of  memory.  We  have 
seen  faces,  one  face,  at  least,  capable  of  pre- 
senting the  very  look  of  Lear,  as  he  stood 
with  his  lifted  face,  blanched  and  wasted  by 
accumulated  and  unutterable  grief,  his  soul 
looking  through  blue  eyes,  beyond  the  storm, 
towards  the  blue  heavens,  the  abode  of  those 
"  kind  gods  "  into  whose  awful  likeness  he 
was  for  the  moment  transfigured. 

We  judge  of  the  capability  of  an  art,  had 
we  no  better  guide,  by  its  best  examples,  not 
its  average  product :  as  in  painting  we  take, 
not  a  tavern  sign,  being  a  portrait  of  the  pro- 
prietor ;  but  rather  Raphael's  picture  in  the 
Dresden  Gallery  of  that  Divine  Child  whose 
name  is  Wonderful. 

Lamb  supposes  that  an  actor  must  be 
thinking  only  and  always  of  his  own  appear- 
ance. "  On  what  compulsion  must  he  ?  tell 
us  that."  A  genuine  actor,  it  is  true,  delights 
in  his  own  product  as  an  artist ;  but  why 
may  he  not  feel,  at  the  same  time,  the  inspi- 
ration of  his  author,  even  to  the  point  of  self- 
forgetfulness  ?  Brooding  study,  and  a  mas- 
tery over  the  business  of  his  profession,  may 
be  the  very  means  of  his  emancipation,  and 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  15 

contribute  to  give  free  play  to  his  genius  ; 
even  as  the  habit  of  virtue  deepens  the  foun- 
tains of  spontaneous  goodness. 

Compare  for  a  moment  the  histrionic  with 
a  sister  art,  and  see  what  delight  of  liberty 
the  former  may  command.  If  the  dull  and 
silent  clay  can  be  so  manipulated  by  the  hand 
of  genius  as  to  insphere  and  express  the  rar- 
est beauty  of  woman,  as  in  that  Neapolitan 
Psyche,  pure,  proud,  visionary  ;  or  rise  to  the 
colossal  grandeur  of  the  Phidian  Jupiter, 
("  how  big  imagination  glows  in  that  lip  !  ") 
why  may  not  the  actor,  whose  clay  is  a  living 
organism  of  fearful  and  wonderful  forces, 
make  it  an  instant  vehicle  of  the  most  glow- 
ing inspiration.  He  is  statue,  and  picture, 
and  poem,  and  music,  and  informs  them  all 
with  life  and  motion,  through  the  charm  of 
his  magnetic  presence. 

Lamb's  article  is  a  special  literary  plea. 
Let  the  closet  student  exalt,  if  he  will,  the 
pleasure  of  abstract  reverie.  We  hold  it  to 
be  "  womanish  and  weak,"  compared  with 
that  robust  and  intellectual  delight,  which 
comes  with  the  "  sense  of  distinctness "  a 
great  actor  is  capable  of  imparting  to  creations 
of  human  character  whose  form  is  genuine, 


16  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

and  which  can  bear  light  and  sound  and  mo- 
tion. The  charm  of  Shakespeare's  dramas  is 
not  a  witch's  spell,  that  an  uttered  word  may 
break. 

Certain  purists  of  to-day  are  following  a 
like  line  of  argument  with  Lamb,  in  their 
graduation  of  the  relative  dignity  of  the  arts. 
Their  formula  might  be  stated  thus :  that  is 
the  finest  art  which  employs  the  most  imma- 
terial vehicle.  But  so  long  as  the  beauty  of 
the  world  depends  on  the  law  of  gravitation, 
we  dare  maintain,  that  the  finest  art  is  that 
in  which  the  solidest  material  is  permeated 
by  the  most  spiritual  thought.  This  is  the 

true 

"  Bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky." 

Not  with  his  usual  vision  of  the  germs  and 
processes  of  genius  did  Lamb  write,  that  an 
actor  is  an  imitator  of  the  signs  and  turns  of 
passion.  An  actor  of  the  understanding,  a 
sensible  actor,  indeed,  always  takes  this 
method ;  an  imaginative  actor,  never.  One 
takes  the  words  of  the  text  (always  premis- 
ing that  he  is  not  a  poor  copy  of  some 
empirical  precedent),  reasons  upon,  and 
infers  the  meaning,  and  so  extracts  the 
character.  The  result  of  this  method,  how- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  17 

ever  carefully  and  comprehensively  employed, 
is  at  best  but  an  abstract  induction,  having 
something  of  the  aspect  of  reality,  biit  auto- 
matic, and  without  the  breath  of  life. 

The  other  looks,  for  example,  into  one  of 
Shakespeare's  great  creations,  as  if  passing 
into  a  real  presence  ;  is  filled  and  atmosphered 
by  its  spirit ;  listens  to  its  language  as  to  a 
living  voice ;  is  brought  into  intimate  rela- 
tions with  the  springs  of  its  being  ;•  and 
conceives  it  in  unity  by  the  power  of  a 
brooding  and  recreative  imagination. 

And  unto  this  power,  because  "  it  cometh 
not  with  observation,"  but  transcends  the 
understanding ;  because  it  is  vital  and  life- 
giving,  and  elevates  acting  from  a  mimetic 
into  an  imaginative  art,  subordinating  the 
comparative  intellect  to  its  higher  and  self- 
justified  laws,  we  feel  bound  to  give,  with 
a  considerate  and  responsible  decision,  the 
sacred  name  of  genius. 

This  word  is  too  often  profaned.  We  do 
not  intend  either  to  cumber  or  distract  the 
reader's  mind  with  a  new  definition.  But  it 
will  be  found  equally  true  of  the  representa- 
tive, as  of  the  originating  arts,  that  they  find 
their  highest  expression  with  swiftness,  ease, 
2 


18  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

and  joy.  With  swiftness ;  for  repose  itself, 
a  live  quiet,  a  quality  so  profound  in  art  and 
so  misappreciated,  sits  at  the  farthest  remove 
from  dullness,  and  necessitates  a  quick  con- 
tinuity of  harmonious  conditions.  "  Living" 
and  "  quick  "  are  English  synonyms.  With 
ease  ;  for,  when  the  high  powers  of  the  mind 
come  by  invitation  or  spontaneous  consent, 
and  combine  and  converge  towards  one  com- 
mon end,  the  beautiful  in  art,  their  grandest 
and  their  gravest  work  is  play.  The  glow  of 
this  play  is  the  very  element  of  joy. 

If  in  addition  to  the  power  we  have  indi- 
cated, but  dare  not  define,  an  actor  be  gifted 
with  an  organization  instantly  responsive  to 
its  monitions,  the  conduit  of  its  influence,  and 
the  varying  form  of  its  strong  possession,  or 
its  subtle  and  shifting  inspiration,  we  call  him 
by  the  noble  name  of  artist. 

That  Mr.  Booth  was  a  man  of  genius  in 
the  vital  conception,  and  a  consummate  artist 
in  the  varied  expression  of  dramatic,  and  es- 
pecially of  Shakespearean  character,  we  hope 
amply  to  illustrate,  by  a  review  of  his  more 
important  personations,  defined  and  refreshed 
by  memoranda  made  at  the  time  of  their 
occurrence,  during  many  years,  for  private 
reference  and  delight. 


THE  TRAGEDIAN.  19 

In  person  Mr.  Booth  was  short,  spare  and 
muscular ;  with  a  head  and  face  of  antique 
beauty ;  dark  hair ;  blue  eyes ;  a  neck  and 
chest  of  ample  but  symmetrical  mould ;  a  step 
and  movement  elastic,  assured,  kingly.  His 
face  was  pale,  with  that  healthy  pallor  which 
is  one  sign  of  a  magnetic  brain.  Throughout 
this  brief,  close-knit,  imperial  figure,  Nature 
had  planted  or  diffused  her  most  vital  organic 
forces  ;  and  made  it  the  capable  servant  of 
the  commanding  mind  that  descended  into 
and  possessed  it  in  every  fibre. 

The  airy  condensation  of  his  tempfi'ament 
found  fullest  expression  in  his  voice.  Sound 
and  capacious  lungs,  a  vascular  and  fibrous 
throat,  clearness  and  amplitude  in  the  inte- 
rior mouth  and  nasal  passages,  formed  its 
physical  basis.  Words  are  weak,  but  the 
truth  of  those  we  shall  employ,  in  an  en- 
deavor to  suggest  that  voice,  will  be  felt  by 
multitudes  who  have  been  thrilled  by  its 
living  tones.  Deep,  massive,  resonant,  many- 
stringed,  changeful,  vast  in  volume,  of  mar- 
velous flexibility  and  range  ;  delivering  with 
ease,  and  power  of  instant  and  total  inter- 
change, trumpet-tones,  bell-tones,  tones  like 
the  "  sound  of  many  waters,"  like  the  muffled 
and  confluent  "  roar  of  bleak-grown  pines." 


20  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

But  no  analogies  in  art  or  nature,  and  espe- 
cially no  indication  of  its  organic  structure 
and  physical  conditions,  could  reveal  the  inner 
secret  of  its  charm.  This  charm  lay  in  the 
mind,  of  which  his  voice  was  the  organ:  a 
"  most  miraculous  organ,"  under  the  sway  of 
a  thoroughly  informing  mind.  The  chest 
voice  became  a  fountain  of  passion  and  emo- 
tion. The  head  register  gave  the  "  clear, 
silver,  icy,  keen,  awakening  tones  "  of  the 
pure  intellect.  And  as  the  imagination  stands, 
with  its  beautiful  and  comforting  face,  between 
heart  tti^.d  brain,  and  marries  them  with  a 
benediction,  giving  glow  to  the  thoughts,  and 
form  to  the  emotions,  so  there  arose  in  this 
intuitive  actor  a  third  element  of  voice,  hard 
to  define,  but  of  a  fusing,  blending,  kindling 
quality,  which  we  may  name  the  imaginative, 
which  appeared  now  in  some  single  word, 
now  with  the  full  diapason  of  tones  in  some 
memorable  sentence,  and  which  distinguished 
him  as  an  incomparable  speaker  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue.  That  voice  was  guided  by  a 
method  which  defied  the  set  rules  of  elocution. 
It  transcended  music.  It  "  brought  airs  from 
heaven  and  blasts  from  hell."  It  struggled 
and  smothered  in  the  pent  fires  of  passion,  or 


THE  TRAGEDIAN.  21 

darted  from  them  as  in  tongues  of  flame. 
It  was  "  the  earthquake  voice  of  victory." 
It  was,  on  occasion,  full  of  tears  and  heart- 
break. Free  as  a  fountain,  it  took  the  form 
and  pressure  of  the  conduit  thought ;  and 
expressive  beyond  known  parallel  in  voice  of 
man,  it  suggested  more  than  it  expressed. 

But  his  voice  was  marked  by  one  signifi- 
cant limitation.  It  had  no  mirth.  There 
were  tones  of  light,  but  none  of  levity.  No 
laughter,  but  that  terrific  laughter  in  Shylock, 
which  seemed  torn  from  his  malignant  heart 
at  the  announcement  of  Antonio's  losses.  It 
is  true  Mr.  Booth  played  in  farce.  We  have 
seen  him  repeatedly  as  Jerry  Sneak,  in 
Foote's  farce  of  the  "  Mayor  of  Garratt ;  " 
and  as  Geoffry  Muffincap,  in  "  Amateurs  and 
Actors."  But  his  acting  in  this  kind  was 
never  to  our  taste.  It  was  not  fun  alive. 
His  farce  was  simply  the  negation  of  his 
tragedy.  In  it  he  took  the  one  step  from  the 
sublime.  The  sunny  blue  eye,  the  genial 
smile,  the  pleasantry  we  found  so  winning  in 
social  intercourse,  never  appeared  upon  the 
stage.  His  genius,  and  the  voice  it  swayed, 
were  dedicated  to  tragedy.  Child  of  nature 
as  he  was,  though  consummated  by  art,  he 


22  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

• 
disdained  no  resource  which  might  minister 

to  the  legitimate  effects  of  tragedy.  And  it 
may  be  said  that,  as  Phidias  blended  the  lion 
into  the  god,  in  the  face  of  his  Jupiter,  so 
Booth  lifted  the  lion's  voice,  "  the  prowling 
lion's  'Here  I  am,'"  into  the  human  scale, 
and  with  judicious  reserve  and  translated 
meaning  bade  it  "roar  and  thunder  in  the 
index  "  of  the  stormier  passions. 

Such  a  man,  so  minded  and  so  organized, 
we  will  not  say  justifies,  he  necessitates  the 
stage.  The  moral  argument  is  absorbed  in 
the  inevitable  fact.  If  the  theatre  had  not 
existed,  he  would  have  created  it,  according 
to  the  Divine  order,  in  which  the  soul  invents 
the  circumstance.  Without  it,  there  would 
have  been  no  field  for  the  exercise  of  his 
peculiar  powers.  In  him  grand  passions  found 
play  through  the  imagination,  not  only  harm- 
less, but  fruitful  and  beautiful  as  art.  Nay,  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  nature  of  this  man  lay, 
a  distinct  personality,  embryonic  in  the  very 
mind  of  Shakespeare,  whose  grander  charac- 
ters awaited,  as  the  centuries  rolled  by,  their 
destined  and  completed  representative.  And 
he  came,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  to  give  them 
living  form,  and  vital  motion,  and  transcend- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  23 

ant  speech,  and  personal  unity,  and  ever- 
endeared  remembrance. 

We  must  regard  him  as  the  greatest  of  all 
actors.  Two  names  alone  in  the  history  of 
the  stage,  might  dispute  his  supremacy  — 
David  Garrick  and  Edmund  Kean.  Garrick 
is  a  tradition.  The  record  of  his  histrionic 
power  is  meagre.  He  seems  to  have  been 
hampered  by  conventionalism,  enacting  Mac- 
beth in  a  tie-wig  and  knee-breeches.  His 
look  is  praised ;  and  the  power  of  his  voice  is 
illustrated  by  declamatory  passages.  No  sat- 
isfactory analysis  of  his  method  has  reached 
us.  The  anecdote  that  Dr.  Johnson  was 
overwhelmed  by  the  pathos  of  his  perform- 
ance in  Lear,  is  the  most  noteworthy  cir- 
cumstance of  his  life  upon  the  stage.  But 
Garrick  played  Tate's  perversion,  not  Shake- 
speare's drama  ;  and  Johnson's  morbid  sensi- 
bility is  well  known. 

Garrick  was  of  French  descent,  and  he 
seems  to  have  inherited  the  vivacity,  the  point, 
the  versatility,  of  the  Gallic  branch  of  the 
Celtic  race.  He  was  playwright,  player, 
dancer,  and  a  facile  writer  of  epilogues  and 
epigrams.  He  adapted,  that  is,  altered  for 
the  stage,  Cymbeline,  Winter's  Tale,  Kath- 


24  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

erine  and  Petruchio.  Dr.  Johnson  said  that 
"'his  death  eclipsed  the  gayety  of  nations." 
He  was  best  in  comedy,  and  his  comic  parts 
far  outnumber  the  tragic.  From  all  sources 
of  knowledge  on  the  subject,  not  omitting 
Fitzgerald's  fascinating  "Life  of  Garrick," 
recently  published  in  London,  we  must  con- 
clude that  his  tragic  acting,  although  a  rare 
entertainment,  did  not  touch  the  deepest 
springs  of  feeling ;  that  it  was  rather  a  skill 
than  an  inspiration. 

The  inadequacy  of  Johnsofi's  commenta- 
ries, stamps  him,  with  all  his  vigorous  English 
sense,  as  singularly  deficient  in  the  very 
quality  which  made  Shakespeare  the  great- 
est of  all  dramatists,  and  which,  whether  in 
'actor  or  critic,  must  be  employed  in  interpret- 
ing his  pages  —  we  mean  the  quality  of  im- 
agination. And  we  are  without  all  evidence 
that  the  player  went  beyond  the  critic.  That 
Garrick  did  not  play  up  to  the  height  of 
Shakespeare,  is  finally  evident  from  the  fact 
that  Shakespeare  himself  was  not  truly  known 
till  a  later  day.  Coleridge  discovered  him. 
Then  Schlegel  and  other  German  thinkers 
(if  indeed  they  did  not  precede  Coleridge), 
caught  his  light,  — 


THE  TRAGEDIAN.  25 

"  The  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  lana, 
The  consecration  and  the  poet's  dream," 

and  reflected  it  back  upon  the  English  mind. 

About  this  time  Booth  appeared,  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  Lon- 
don. At  another  theatre,  another  actor  of 
original  force  and  fiery  temperament,  in  the 
full  maturity  of  his  power  and  fame,  the  des- 
pot of  the  stage,  jealous  of  all  rivalry,  was 
enacting  Shakespeare  to  the  wonder  and 
admiration  of  the  city;  while  such  men  as 
Coleridge,  and  Hazlitt,  and  Lamb,  and  God- 
win, sat  attentive  in  the  pit.  This  actor  was 
Edmund  Kean. 

"  Two  stars  keep  not  their  motion  in  one 
sphere."  It  is  from  the  purpose  of  this  essay 
to  detail  the  circumstances  of  the  war  which 
followed,  between  the  rival  players.  The 
curiosity  of  the  reader  may  find  satisfaction 
by  looking  into  any  authentic  record  of  the 
English  stage.  What  we  have  to  do,  is, 
briefly  to  note  the  respective  forms  of  histri- 
onic power  in  Kean  and  Booth  ;  to  trace 
these  forms  to  their  true  sources  in  bodily 
and  mental  constitution,  and  to  assign  the 
superiority  to  whom  it  rightfully  belongs. 

There  was  a  striking  resemblance  between 


26  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

these  two  actors,  in  height  and  figure.  In 
temperament,  also,  there  was  a  partial  sim- 
ilarity —  both  being  distinguished  by  passion- 
ate energy,  and  by  daring  to  displace  the 
prescriptive  habits  of  the  stage,  by  the  action 
and  the  tones  of  nature.  To  the  English 
mind,  observant  of  externals,  and  thrice-sod- 
den in  its  regard  for  precedent,  this  super- 
ficial likeness,  coupled  with  the  mere  fact 
that  Booth  was  the  younger  and  later  prod- 
uct, seems  to  have  suggested  that  he  formed 
his  style  upon  the  acting  of  Kean.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  We  pro- 
pose to  state  the  points  of  difference  between 
them,  condensed  from  the  widest  range  of 
the  most  unimpeachable  testimony. 

In  Booth,  the  passionate  energy,  common 
to  both,  was  sustained  and  expanded  by  a 
certain  ethereal  quality,  wanting  in  Kean. 
Kean  was  alert ;  Booth,  airy.  Kean  was 
black-eyed,  like  the  children  of  Southern 
Europe.  Booth  had  the  blue  eyes  of  the 
North, 

"  Whence  those  arts  and  races  sprung 
Which  light,  and  lift,  and  sway  the  world." 

The  confined  intensity  of  temperament  in 
Kean,  limited  the  range  of  his  voice.  Haz- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  27 

litt  speaks  of  him  as  having  "  the  eye  of  an 
eagle,  and  the  voice  of  a  raven ;  "  and  else- 
where, while  justly  lauding  the  fire,  the  na- 
ture, the  genius  of  his  favorite,  confesses  to 
his  "  inharmonious  voice."  The  voice  obeys 
the  emotion  which  dominates  and  employs  it, 
and  the  pathos  of  Kean's  utterance,  partic- 
ularly in  certain  passages  of  Othello,  has 
probably  never  been  surpassed. 

In  that  admirable  paper  on  the  "Acting 
of  Kean,"  written  by  Mr.  Dana  (himself  a 
poet  and  imaginative  critic  of  a  high  and  del- 
icate order  of  genius  ;  and  which  brief  record 
has  gone  far  to  continue  the  visionary  and 
vanishing  fame  of  the  actor),  he  says,  the 
pronunciation  of  the  single  word  "Ha!  "  in 
Othello,  when  the  feeling  of  jealousy  is 
first  awakened  in  his  heart,  seemed  to  carry 
away  the  listener  "  on  its  wild  swell." 
Kean's  throat  was  a  cave  of  magical  whis- 
pers. But,  whether  owing  or  not  to  the 
national  catarrh,  which  afflicts  the  majority 
of  Englishmen,  and  the  influence  of  which 
upon  the  pronunciation  of  their  native  tongue 
is  imitated  by  some  absurd  Americans,  his 
voice  was  equally  deficient  in  the  ringing 
head  tones,  and  in  that  resonant  bass,  not 


28  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

guttural,  but  far  deeper,  which  Booth  used 
with  such  masculine  and  memorable  effect. 
We  find  accordingly  in  Kean's  voice  a  pe- 
culiarity, a  mannerism,  in  which  the  liquids 
m  and  n  had  no  place,  but  which  consisted 
in  a  prolongation  of  the  liquids  I  and  r. 

"  Farewell-l-l  the  pl-1-lumdd  trrroop." 

The  most  cordial  tribute  to  Kean's  excel- 
lence, was  given  us  by  one  who,  by  the  law 
of  retaliation,  was  under  the  least  obligation 
to  render  it,  namely,  by  Mr.  Booth  himself. 
Similar  magnanimity  Kean  never  would 
have  shown.  But  Mr.  Booth,  throughout  a 
changeful  career,  marked  by  human  infirm- 
ity, and  running  sometimes  on  the  giddy 
verge  of  madness,  was  always  a  gentleman 
as  well  as  a  scholar  ;  while  it  must  be  owned 
that  Kean,  great  as  were  his  histrionic  claims, 
was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

There  existed  however  a  distinction,  more 
radical  than  temperament,  or  education,  or 
manners,  which  separated  these  two  actors, 
and  lay  in  the  very  core  of  the  mental  life 
of  each.  Look  at  the  portraits  of  Kean.  All 
concur  (even  that  one  with  the  Kemble  eye- 
brow, which  Kean  had  not)  in  giving  him  a 
brain  wide  at  the  base,  pinched  at  the  tern- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  29 

pies ;  in  marked  contrast  with  the  winged 
and  balanced  brain  of  Booth.  Correspond- 
ingly, all  records  and  all  reports  agree,  in 
representing  Kean's  performances  as  fearfully 
intense,  inevitable,  aiming  to  express  char- 
acter by  single  strokes  of  overwhelming  en- 
ergy, or  heart-broken  pathos ;  and  leaving 
between  the  strokes  wide  intervals  of  dull- 
ness. 

Coleridge  said  that  to  see  him  act,  "  was 
like  reading  Shakespeare  by  flashes  of  light- 
ning." John  Kemble  said,  "  the  little  fellow 
is  'terribly  in  earnest."  All  records  agree  — 
all  but  one.  Macaulay,  in  his  "  History  of 
England,"  in  one  of  those  brief  and  brilliant 
episodes  which  beguile  the  progress  of  the 
story,  traces  the  pedigree  of  Kean  to  the 
Marquis  of  Halifax  —  through  how  many 
escapades  of  illegitimacy  he  does  not  confess. 
He  says,  the  Marquis  was  the  progenitor 
of  "  that  Edmund  Kean,  who,  in  our  own 
time,  transformed  himself  so  marvelously  into 
Shylock,  lago,  and  Othello."  If  this  be 
true,  no  higher  praise  could  be  awarded  to 
any  actor.  If  this  be  true,  then  the  por- 
traits, and  Kemble,  and  Hazlitt,  and  Coler- 
idge, and  a  multitude  of  contemporary  ob- 
servers now  living,  are  all  at  fault. 


30  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

We  think  it  will  require  something  more 
than  the  dazzling  dogmatism  of  the  English 
historian,  to  sustain  his  position.  We  think, 
not  that  Kean  transformed  himself  into  Shy- 
lock,  lago,  and  Othello ;  but  that  the  actor 
transformed  those  characters  respectively 
into  Edmund  Kean :  that  is,  that  he  took 
just  those  words,  and  lines,  and  points,  and 
passages,  in  the  character  he  was  to  repre- 
sent, which  he  found  suited  to  his  genius, 
and  gave  them  with  electric  force.  His 
method  was  limitary.  It  was  analytic  and 
passionate ;  not,  in  the  highest  sense,  intel- 
lectual and  imaginative. 

Our  final  authority  is  Hazlitt,  who  has 
given,  in  his  work  on  the  "  English  Stage," 
by  far  the  most  thorough  exposition  of 
Kean's  powers.  Hazlitt  learnt  him  by  heart. 
He  delved  him  to  the  root,  and  let  in  on  his 
merits  and  defects  the  irradiating  and  the 
"  insolent  light"  of  a  searching  criticism.  He 
says,  with  fine  hyperbole,  that  to  see  Kean 
at  his  best,  in  Othello,  "  was  one  of  the  con- 
solations of  the  human  mind ;  "  yet  is  con- 
strained to  admit,  even  in  his  notice  of  this 
play,  that  "  Kean  lacked  —  imagination." 

Now  this  power  Booth  possessed  of  a  sub- 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  31 

tile  kind,  and  in  magnificent  measure.  It 
lent  a  weird  expressiveness  to  his  voice. 
It  atmosphered  his  most  terrific  performances 
with  beauty.  Booth  took  up  Kean  at  his 
best,  and  carried  him  further.  Booth  was 
Kean,  plus  the  higher  imagination.  Kean 
was  the  intense  individual ;  Booth,  the  type 
in  the  intense  individual.  To  see  Booth  in 
his  best  mood  was  not  "  like  reading  Shake- 
speare by  flashes  of  lightning,"  in  which  a 
blinding  glare  alternates  with  the  fearful  sus- 
pense of  darkness ;  but  rather  like  reading 
him  by  the  sunlight  of  a  summer's  day,  a 
light  which  casts  deep  shadows,  gives  play  to 
glorious  harmonies  of  color,  and  shows  all 
objects  in  vivid  life  and  true  relation. 

The  recorded  impression  left  by  Kean  on 
the  minds  of  his  reporters  and  biographers, 
is  of  a  mighty  grasp  and  overwhelming  ener- 
gy in  partial  scenes  ;  while  Booth  is  remem- 
bered for  his  sustained  and  all-related  con- 
ception of  character,  intensely  realized,  it  is 
true,  but  chiefly  marked  by  those  ideal  traits, 
which  not  only  charmed  the  listener,  but  ac- 
companied the  scholar  to  his  study,  and  shed 
a  light  on  the  subtlest  and  the  profoundest 
page  of  Shakespeare.  The  imaginative  power 


32  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

was  so  opulent  in  Booth,  that-  he  multiplied 
himself  into  the  scene,  and  abolished  the 
dullness  of  the  other  players.  Filled  with 
the  conception  of  the  supernatural  himself,  he 
"  shook  the  superflux  to  them."  In  Hamlet, 
he  made  the  tread  and  exit  of  the  heaviest 
"  ghost,"  airier ;  and  in  Macbeth,  transformed 
by  his  presence  and  action,  the  three  fantastic 
old  women  into  ministers  of  fate. 

In  according  to  Booth  the  gift  of  supreme 
histrionic  power,  we  do  not  imply  that  his 
performances  were  faultless ;  for  the  faultless 
performer  is  simply  the  correct.  We  wil- 
lingly admit  that  he  may  have  been  matched 
by  others,  and  haply  surpassed  in  all  second- 
ary qualities,  excepting  voice,  which  illumi- 
nate the  stage ;  he  holding,  beyond  rivalry, 
the  single  controlling  quality  of  a  penetrating, 
kindling,  shaping  imagination.  Genius  can 
light  its  own  fire  ;  and  it  is  the  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  histrionic  genius  to  cherish,  manipu- 
late, and  apply  the  flame.  Yet  in  the  finest 
results  of  all  art  there  is  something  indepen- 
dent of  the  will.  Mr.  Booth  was  perhaps  the 
most  unequal  of  all  great  actors.  And  this 
inequality  was  more  sadly  manifest  towards 
the  latter  part  of  his  career.  His  excellence 


THE  TRAGEDIAN.  33 

was,  however,  throughout  his  life,  so  incal- 
culable and  surprising,  that  one  of  his  very 
greatest  Shakespearean  performances  took 
place  in  the  year  1850,  during  his  last  en- 
gagement in  Boston. 

Health,  animal  spirits,  that  vigor  which 
comes  from  just  intervals  of  repose,  clearness 
of  voice  in  our  trying  climate,  and  general 
freshness  of  the  physical  man,  may  all  con- 
spire to  serve  the  exacting  hour,  and  yet  the 
spontaneous  actor  not  find  himself  "  i'  the 
vein."  The  transforming  imaginative  power 
on  which  he  relies  to  identify  himself  with 
the  dramatic  character,  may  be  either  slug- 
gish or  asleep.  The  whence  and  whither  of 
that  wind  of  the  spirit,  who  knoweth  ?  So 
Mr.  Booth,  to  the  casual  attendant  on  his 
performances,  often  failed  to  sustain  his  great 
reputation.  Only  to  those  who,  like  our- 
selves, had  waited  on  them  through  remuner- 
ating years,  did  the  full  depth  and  refinement, 
the  glow  and  sway  of  mind  he  showed, 
entirely  appear.  Many  a  time,  when  passion 
and  imagination  were  comparatively  wanting, 
have  we  admired  the  subtle  intellect  of  his 
interpretations  ;  and  were,  on  such  occasions, 
content  to  follow  his  lifted  and  guiding  torch, 


34  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

along  the  spar-gemmed  labyrinths  of  Shake- 
speare's more  intricate  meanings. 

Our  course  of  remark  has  drifted  us  into 
that  cloud  which  hung  over  and  partially 
obscured  his  fame,  and  which,  in  good  men's 
minds,  affixed  a  blot  on  his  personal  character. 
We  mean  what  has  been  called,  with  needless 
exaggeration,  his  habit  of  intoxication.  We 
would  gladly  avoid  this  subject,  but  "  omit- 
tance  is  no  quittance,''  and  we  proceed  to 
set  the  charge  in  its  true  light.  During  the 
forty  years,  save  one,  which  bounded  his 
dramatic  career,  Mr.  Booth's  habit  of  life, 
both  on  his  farm  and  on  the  stage,  was  exem- 
plarily  temperate.  His  reverence  for  the 
sacredness  of  all  life  amounted  to  a  super- 
stition. He  abstained  for  many  years  on 
principle  from  the  use  of  animal  food.  An 
"  extravagant  and  erring  spirit,"  allied  to 
madness,  would  sometimes  take  possession  of 
him,  and  hurry  him  away  from  the  theatre  at 
the  moment  the  performance  was  to  begin ; 
and  to  this  cause,  and  not  to  intoxication, 
should  be  attributed  the  not  infrequent  dis- 
appointment of  the  audience.  Still  it  must 
be  confessed,  with  grief  and  pity,  that  the 
baser  charge  was  often  true.  A  resort  to 


THE   TRAGEDIAN.  35 

stimulants  is  the  actor's  special  bane  and 
ever-present  temptation :  to  an  actor  of  Mr. 
Booth's  spontaneous  method,  sometimes  an 
irresistible  temptation.  The  histrionic  art 
was  to  him  a  cultus,  a  religion.  Not  to  speak 
it  profanely,  he  offered  himself  a  perpetual 
sacrifice  to  the  god  of  terror  and  of  beauty ; 
he  staked  "  soul  and  body  on  the  action  both," 
and  the  exhaustion  sometimes  attendant  upon 
his  performance  of  the  fiery  rite,  was  relieved 
by  means  questionable,  pitiful,  pardonable. 

The  accident  by  which  his  nose  was  broken, 
spoiling  forever  his  noble  profile,  threatened 
for  a  time  the  more  serious  disaster  of  a  per- 
manent injury  to  his  voice.  Immediately  on 
his  recovery  he  began  to  play.  To  those 
who,  during  these  first  performances,  recalled 
the  perfect  features  and  the  resonant  tones 
of  former  years,  the  sight  and  sound  were 
indeed  pitiful.  The  head  tones  were  scarce- 
ly perceptible.  But  instead  of  humoring  this 
vocal  infirmity,  he  spoke  with  all  the  old 
mastery  of  motive,  and  let  the  result  take 
care  of  itself.  By  this  persistent  method,  in 
less  than  two  years  after  the  accident,  his 
voice  had  completely  recovered  its  original 
scope,  variety,  and  power ;  as  we  can  attest 


36  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

by  close,  solicitous,  and  comparative  observa- 
tion. To  this  restoration,  added  to  the 
autumnal  ripeness  of  his  physical  and  mental 
powers,  we  owe  the  undiminished  zest  and 
life  of  his  impersonations. 

We  pass  on  to  examples,  in  the  hope  that 
the  reader  will  bring  to  our  record  that 
"  productive  imagination  "  which  alone  can 
render  fruitful  the  endeavor  to  rekindle  the 
fire  of  eye  and  action,  to  give  form  to  air,  to 
bring  a  voice  out  of  the  silent  past,  and  to 
conjure  up  before  him  a  kingly  and  inspiring 
presence. 


EICHARD  HL 

WE  do  not  quarrel  with  Colley  Gibber, 
player  and  playwright  of  the  time  of  Gar- 
rick,  because  he  saw  fit,  for  the  convenience 
of  the  stage,  to  compose,  out  of  several  his- 
torical plays  of  Shakespeare,  in  which  the 
same  characters  occur,  one  entitled  "  Rich- 
ard the  Third."  But  we  do  blame  him  for 
his  audacious  excision  of  the  living  limbs, 
his  more  audacious  interpolations  in  the  text, 
and  his  senseless  changes  in  the  character 
of  that  Richard,  third  of  the  name,  whom 
Shakespeare  delineated.  He  has  obliterated 
those  lights  of  human  feeling,  which  the 
great  master  touched  in,  and  which  alone 
redeem  Richard  from  the  condition  of  vulgar 
villainy,  into  which  Gibber  plunges  him. 
The  buoyant,  aspiring  soul  of  the  usurper, 
finding  expression  in  such  language  as  this  — 

"  But  I  was  born  so  high, 
Our  aiery  buildeth  in  the  cedar's  top 
And  dallies  with  the  wind,  and  scorns  the  sun," 

does  nowhere  appear. 


38  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

In  Shakespeare,  the  villainy  is  incidental 
to  the  ambition ;  and  is  besides  relieved  by 
genius,  energy,  and  vast  and  ready  variety 
of  intellectual  resources.  In  Gibber's  ver- 
sion, villainy  i«  the  substance  of  the  char- 
acter ;  the  very  element  in  which  it  sits  and 
revels.  In  Shakespeare,  when  multiplying 
dangers  and  ghostly  visitation  have  com- 
bined to  open  in  Richard's  soul  "  the  access 
and  passage  to  remorse,"  occurs  this  remark- 
able utterance :  — 

"  There  is  no  creature  loves  me, 
And  if  I  die  no  soul  will  pity  me !  " 

Gibber  wantonly  hardens  the  depravity  of 
the  character,  below  its  all-sufficient  wicked- 
ness. The  interpolated  scene  with  Lady 
Anne,  whom  Richard  had  widowed,  cajoled, 
married,  and  resolved  to  slay,  is  simply  atro- 
cious and  inhuman. 

But  the  play,  such  as  it  is,  shining  with 
Shakespeare's  genius,  blotted  by  Gibber's 
folly,  has  always  held  the  stage ;  and  it  is 
less  our  purpose  to  complain  of  its  defects, 
than  to  show  Mr.  Booth's  masterly  imper- 
sonation of  the  leading  part.  He  is  identi- 
fied with  it  in  the  public  mind.  His  per- 
formance of  it  was  certain,  at  any  period  of 


RICHARD  III.  39 

«*. 

his  life,  to  crowd  the  theatre.  And  in  truth, 
although  it  excluded  all  opportunity  for  the 
display  of  the  finer  traits  of  his  genius,  yet 
the  energy,  subtlety,  variety,  he  brought  to 
its  representation  —  the  sustained  vigor  of 
voice,  and  look,  and  action,  to  the  last. — 
justified  the  popular  approval. 

In  Mr.  Booth's  conception  the  main  im- 
pulse was  most  apparent ;  the  ambition,  and 
not  the  crimes  it  caused.  There  was  a  certain 
slow  movement  at  the  opening ;  a  sombre 
settled  purpose,  underlying  and  surrounding 
his  most  brilliant  action  ;  and  giving  place  at 
last  to  a  preternatural  energy,  and  fiery  ex- 
pedition, only  when  the  object,  the  crown, 
was  attained,  and  all  the  resources  of  his 
fertile  brain  were  drawn  on  and  combined, 
in  the  effort  to  retain  the  regal  power  he 
had  usurped. 

With  head  bent  in  thought,  arms  folded, 
and  slow  long  step,  longer  it  would  seem 
than  the  height  of  his  figure  might  warrant, 
yet  perfectly  natural  to  him,  and  so  that  his 
lifted  foot  emerged  first  into  view,  Booth 
appeared  upon  the  scene,  enveloped  and  ab- 
sorbed in  the  character  of  Richard. 

If  tumultuous  plaudits  extorted  from  him 


40  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

a  momentary  recognition  of  the  audience,  it 
was  done  with  no  suspension  of  the  look  and 
action  of  the  character.  That  look  and  ac- 
tion were  profoundly  self-involved.  He  de- 
livered the  soliloquy  beginning  — 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent," 

in  an  inward  many-stringed  resonance  of 
tone,  varied  by  outbursts  of  passionate  vehe- 
mence, when  "  descanting  on  his  own  de- 
formity," and  reaching  through  murderous 
intent  after  the  glorious  diadem.  He  spoke 
like  a  man  thinking  aloud,  not  as  if  reciting 
from  memory.  Indeed,  to  speak  with  strict- 
ness, he  never  re-cited  at  all.  He  possessed 
himself  of  the  character,  and  its  language, 
and  then  uttered  it  from  inspiration,  and 
according  to  the  emergency  of  the  scene  and 
the  situation.  Memory,  the  prime  need  of 
an  actor,  speedily  becomes  his  greatest  dan- 
ger ;  a  danger  lurking  always  in  repetitions 
of  performance,  but  one  into  which  our  actor 
seldom  if  ever  fell.  He  carried  distinctness 
of  articulation  to  an  extreme,  pronouncing 
"  ocean,"  in  this  soliloquy,  as  a  word  of  three 
syllables. 

In  the  sequent  scene  where  Gloster  hav- 
ing killed  King  Henry,  exclaims  with  bitter 
scorn  — 


RICHARD  111.  41 

"  What!     Will  the  aspiring  blood  of  Lancaster 
Sink  in  the  ground?    I  thought  it  would  have  mounted !  " 

he  lifts  his  sword,  and  his  eye  following, 
catches  sight  of  blood  upon  the  blade,  in  a 
manner  like  the  very  truth  of  nature.  He 
adds  — 

"  See !    How  my  sword  weeps  for  the  poor  king's  death ! 
0 !  may  such  purple  tears  be  always  shed, 
By  those  who  wish  the  downfall  of  our  house." 

What  grim  humor  was  in  that  cold,  self- 
poised  recollection,  contained  in  the  words  — 

"  Indeed,  'tis  true,  that  Henry  told  me  of," 

Henry  lying  then  warm  but  dead  by  his 
hand,  and  alone  with  him  in  the  kingly  bed- 
chamber ! 

Originality  in  Mr.  Booth's  performances 
was  a  necessity  of  his  genius.  His  acting 
was  a  congeries  of  causes,  coordinated  with 
the  main  cause,  the  conception  of  the  char- 
acter. Kean's  manner  of  acting,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  a  series  of  disconnected  brilliant 
effects.  Gloster's  wooing  scene  with  Lady 
Anne  is  a  case  in  point. 

The  best  character  portrait  of  Kean,  repre- 
sents him  on  one  knee,  smiling,  and  saying  — 

"  Take  up  the  sword  again,  or  take  up  me." 

Hazlitt  says,  "  The  whole  scene  was  an  ad- 


42  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

mirable  exhibition  of  smooth  and  smiling  vil- 
lainy." Booth  made  no  such  exhibition. 
He  did  not  kneel  gracefully.  The  question 
with  him  was  not,  how  is  courtship  done  ; 
but  how  would  Gloster  do  it.  Nothing 
would  be  more  likely  to  charm  so  weak  a 
woman  as  Lady  Anne,  than  the  repentance 
and  humility  of  so  powerful  a  nature  as  that 
of  Richard.  "  You  may  relish  him  more  in 
the  soldier  than  in  the  lover."  Personal 
flattery  was  thrown  in  as  a  spice,  and  not 
as  the  substance  of  the  dish  he  offered  her. 
Surprise  was  blent  with  joy  at  his  hoped-for 
victory,  in  the  glance  he  darted  up  from  his 
abasement  at  her  feet,  when  Lady  Anne 
drops  the  sword.  Surprise  which  finds  vent 
in  words,  as  soon  as  he  finds  himself  alone. 

"  Was  ever  woman  in  this  humor  wooed? 
Was  ever  woman  in  this  humor  won  f 
I'll  have  her —  but  I  will  not  keep  her  long." 

The  whole  soliloquy  was  given  with  that 
massive,  vivid,  and  varied  intonation,  which 
might  express  the  tumult  of  feelings  awak- 
ened by  his  almost  incredible  success.  How 
fine  the  sudden  halt,  in  that  repeated  descant 
on  his  own  deformity,  and  airy  change  of 
tone,  in  the  passage  beginning  — 


RICHARD  111.  48 

"  My  dukedom  to  a  beggarly  denier 
I  do  mistake  my  person  all  this  while." 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  picturesque  beauty 
of  his  action,  as  he  delivered  the  closing 
lines  — 

"  Shin  e  out  fair  sun,  till  I  salute  my  glass, 
That  I  may  see  my  shadow  as  I  pass." 

He  looked  down  at  his  supposed  shadow 
(we  seem  to  see  the  shadow  as  we  write)  ; 
he  looked  with  lingering  step,  and,  with 
pauses  between  the  words,  annihilated  the 
sing-song  of  the  double  ending  — 

"  That  I  may  see  —  my  shadow  —  as  —  I  pass." 

The  flexible  grasp  with  which  Mr.  Booth 
laid  hold  of  and  personated  the  elements  of 
a  character,  permitted  certain  minor  varia- 
tions, both  in  by-play  and  intonation,  in  dif- 
ferent performances  of  the  same  part,  with- 
out injuring,  but  rather  heightening,  the 
general  effect.  This  freshened  the  interest 
in  successive  exhibitions,  and  gave  scope 
oftentimes  to  rare  and  vanishing  delicacies  of 
thought  and  feeling.  An  instance  occurred 
in  the  scene  between  Gloster  and  the  young 
prince  Edward,  sometimes  given  thus :  — 

Gloster  (aside).  "  So  wise,  so  young  (they  say),  do  ne'er 
live  long," 


44  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

as  if  musing  complacently  on  the  proverb, 
yet  scarcely  harboring  the  purpose  of  making 
it  true.  And  again  thus :  — 

"  So  wise,  so  young,  they  say,  do  ne'er  live  long." 

as  if  the  proverb  was  but  the  cloak  of  his  full- 
blown intent  to  **  remove  "  the  prince. 

From  this  point  he  developed  the  character 
with  ever-increasing  animation  and  momen- 
tum. His  change  of  manner  when  seated 
on  the  throne  was  marked  and  majestic,  and 
in  fine  contrast  with  the  wily,  plotting  ap- 
proaches to  it.  Buckingham,  the  agent  of 
his  elevation,  stands  at  once  and  forever  in 
the  shadow  of  his  kingly  will.  Booth's  tone 
and  action  acquired  a  combined  solidity  and 
celerity,  which  continued,  with  brief  but  fear- 
ful interruptions  in  the  latter  scenes,  to  the 
end  of  the  play. 

We  may  here  note  an  apparent  error  in 
his  manner  of  replying  to  Buckingham's 
urgent  and  reiterated  demand  for  the  prom- 
ised earldom.  He  says :  — 

"  Thou  troublest  me.    I'm  not  i'  the  vein," 

in  a  tone  of  fretful  anger.  The  passage 
would  seem  rather  to  require  a  tone  of  cool 
and  kingly  slight.  Shakespeare  amplifies 
the  retort,  and  has  this  line,  left  out  in  Gib- 
ber's version :  — 


RICHARD  HI.  45 

"  I  ain  not  in  the  giving  vein  to-day." 

In  the  scene  where  Richard  pleads  with 
Queen  Elizabeth  for  her  daughter's  hand,  and 
says  — 

"  When  this  warlike  arm  shall  have  chastised 
The  audacious  rebel,  hot-brained  Buckingham, 
Bound  with  triumphant  garlands  will  I  come, 
And  lead  your  daughter  to  a  conqueror's  bed," 

we  cannot  express  the  splendor  of  his  man- 
ner better  than  by  saying,  that  it  suggested 
the  majestic  march,  the  mighty  music,  and 
the  flower-like  play  of  color  of  a  Roman  tri- 
umph. Lord  Stanley  enters  with  these 
words :  — 

'  Richmond  is  on  the  seas." 

Richard.  "  There  let  him  sink  "  (plummet),  "  and  be  the 
seas  on  him  "  ( like  the  lift,  advance,  and  fall  of  one  huge 
whelming  wave),  "  white-livered  runagate "  (between  set 
teeth,  like  hissing  foam). 

In  this  dialogue  with  Stanley,  Booth  re- 
stored a  passage  from  Shakespeare,  not  in 
Gibber's  play,  but  essential  to  the  character 
of  Richard,  who,  fighting  to  maintain  his 
throne,  seems  really  to  feel  himself  "the 
Lord's  anointed."  In  reply  to  Stanley's 
suggestion  that  Richmond  came  to  claim  the 
crown,  Richard  bursts  forth  — 

"  Is  the  chair  empty  ?  Is  the  sword  unswayed  ?  Is  the 
king  dead?  " 


46  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

The  solid,  smiting  questions,  the  momen- 
tary pause  between,  as  rendered .  by  Booth, 
can  never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  heard 
them.  The  questions  continue  and  culminate 
in  that  memorable  passage  — 

"  What  do  they  i'  the  North, 
When  they  should  serve  their  sovereign  i'  the  West?  " 

The  last  line  was  delivered  in  one  continuous 
tone  of  commanding  resonance,  in  which  the 
words  were  dropped  like  stones  in  the  current 
of  his  speech. 

In  the  concluding  scenes  of  this  play  he 
seemed,  when  in  his  best  mood,  to  be  filled 
with  "  strange  fire."  He  showed  infinite 
vigilance  of  mind,  relentless  mastery  of  will. 
The  tent  scene,  in  which  Richard  starts  out 
of  his  remorseful  dream,  was  one  of  terrific 
grandeur,  and  never  failed  of  producing  an 
electrical  effect.  After  he  had  mastered  the 
harrowing  thoughts  born  of  his  dream,  his 
utterance  of  the  words  — 

"  Richard's  himself  again," 

constituted  a  brief  but  pointed  study  of  char- 
acter. A  distinguished  tragedian,  now  living 
and  performing,  and  therefore  here  unnamed, 
could  find  no  better  gesture  for  Richard's 
self-recovery  than  to  strike  a  fencing  attitude. 


RICHARD  III.  47 

But  Booth  stood  still,  and  with  one  inclusive, 
unanalyzable  motion  of  the  hand,  took  limbs, 
body,  heart,  and  brain,  in  its  subtle  and  com- 
manding sweep,  while  he  delivered  the  pas- 
sage expressing  his  inward  victory  with 
inward  voice  — 

"As  if  a  man  were  author  of  himself 
And  knew  no  other  kin !  " 

In  the  following  scene,  when  Stanley's 
defection  is  announced,  Richard  exclaims  — 

"  Off  with  his  son  George's  head." 
At  that  moment  his  ear  catches  the  sound  of 
distant  music,  and  his  whole  manner  instantly 
changes.  He  listens,  leaning  on  the  air  with 
keen  looks  and  parted  lips,  and  an  expression 
of  eager  and  confident  expectation. 

Norfolk.     "  My  lord,  the  foe's  already  past  the  marsh ; 

After  the  battle  let  young  Stanley  die." 
Richard.     "  Why,  after  be  it  then." 

He  said  this  in  a  tone  of  the  lightest  and 
most  careless  readiness,  still  listening ;  then 
resumed  his  energy  of  manner  in  the  brief 
and  stirring  appeal  to  his  soldiers,  as  he  led 
them  into  the  fight. 

In  the  last  scene  he  fought  with  Richmond 
desperately ;  when  wounded  and  overthrown, 
fought  on  the  ground.  Finally,  gathering 


48  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

himself  up  with  one  mighty  effort,  he  plunged 
headlong  at  his  cool  antagonist,  wa&  disarmed, 
and  felled  to  the  earth.  Gibber  has  put  in- 
to the  mouth  of  the  dying  Richard,  some 
wretched  and  inhuman  stuff,  which,  to  the 
credit  of  Mr.  Booth  be  it  said,  we  could  never 
distinctly  hear  from  his  lips.  It  sounded 
only  like  — 

"  The  cloudy  groan 
Of  dying  thunder  on  the  distant  wind." 


HAMLET. 

THE  character  of  Hamlet  has  been,  ever 
since  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  the  delight  and 
the  puzzle  of  scholars.  The  portrayal  of  it 
has  been  equally  the  ambition  and  the  failure 
of  actors.  The  scholar  finds  the  drama  emi- 
nently a  tragedy  of  thought,  and  is  apt  to 
refine  into  abstraction  the  personality  of  the 
hero.  The  actor,  depending  in  his  art  on 
presence  and  speech,  usually  fails  to  sound 
the  depth  of  the  character,  to  pluck  out  the 
heart  of  its  mystery,  and  so  gives  its  varied 
incident,  action,  dialogue,  soliloquy,  in  a 
succession  of  incoherent,  perhaps  brilliant, 
effects. 

In  Mr.  Booth's  conception,  Hamlet  was  a 
character,  not  of  melancholy,  but  of  a  pre- 
dominant sensibility,  which  included  melan- 
choly. Not  of  madness,  but  of  one  who, 
bound  by  strange  ties  to  the  invisible  world, 
found  his  large  discourse  of  reason  and  his 
mastery  of  will  distracted  between  opposing 

4 


50  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

duties.  In  Hamlet,  filial  love  amounted  to  a 
passion.  And  his  father's  spirit,  in  arms, 
appeared  visibly  to  him,  and  audibly  com- 
manded him,  in  terms  of  solemn  adjuration, 
to  commit  a  deed  abhorrent  to  his  feelings  as 
a  man.  Booth's  Hamlet  was  intensely  per- 
sonal. His  brain  was  — 

"  The  quick  forge  and  working-house  of  thought.'1 

His  heart  was  full  of  purpose,  as  of  affection. 
His  indecision  was  the  result  of  circumstances, 
not  a  defect  of  will.  But  this  positive  and 
personal  life  was  so  atmosphered  by  beauty, 
so  steeped  in  melancholy,  so  spiritualized  by 
supernatural  emotion,  that  it  seemed  to  us, 
in  all  essential  qualities,  the  very  Hamlet  of 
Shakespeare. 

That  phase  of  this  many-sided  creation  to 
which  he  gave  least  effect,  was  the  princeli- 
ness.  That  pensive  grace  and  high  breeding 
which  many  regard  as  Hamlet's  permanent 
condition,  ruffled  only  by  passing  gusts  of 
passion,  illuminated  by  fitful  lights  of  philoso- 
phy and  fancy,  and  crazed  by  ghostly  visita- 
tion,— found  in  him  an  indifferent  interpre- 
ter. He  seemed  too  severely  exercised  by 
"  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches  of  his  soul  "  to 


HAMLET.  51 

mind  the  graces  of  the  court ;  and  his  manner 
was  seldom  gentle,  but  rather  "  swift  as  medi- 
tation." Hamlet  was  Booth's  favorite  part. 
Among  unnumbered  representations,  we 
select  for  special  comment  one  which  took 
place  at  the  Howard  Athena3um,  in  Boston, 
on  that  very  winter's  night  when  the  steamer 
Atlantic  was  lost  upon  Long  Island  Sound,  in 
a  furious  snow-storm  — 

"  A  brave  vessel 

Which  had  no  doubt  some  noble  creatures  in  her, 
Dashed  all  to  pieces." 

Owing  to  the  weather  the  attendance  was 
small.  This  circumstance  aided  the  illusion 
of  the  opening  scene,  as  if  the  scattered  spec- 
tators were  accidentally  present,  and  looking 
at  the  chilled  and  lonely  sentinels,  pacing  the 
ramparts  of  Elsinore  castle.  But  the  audi- 
ence was  fit  though  few.  An  eminent  Shake- 
spearean scholar  sat  with  us,  and  a  knot  of 
literary  friends.  It  was  a  noteworthy  fact, 
however  it  might  be  accounted  for,  that  Mr. 
Booth  seemed  to  play  better  to  a  thin  house. 
He  appeared  on  the  stage  with  his  features 
marred,  with  his  natural  hair  turned  iron- 
gray,  and  with  no  special  help  from  costume, 
or  scenery,  or  the  other  actors.  But  never 


52  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

did  the  soul  of  Hamlet  shine  forth  more 
clearly  with  its  own  peculiar,  fitful,  far-reach- 
ing, saddened,  and  supernatural  light. 

He  was  not  merely  sad,  but  stricken  in 
grief,  at  the  sudden  and  mysterious  death  of 
his  father.  He  is  stung  by  instinctive  sus- 
picion of  his  uncle.  He  is  shamed  and 'out- 
raged by  his  mother's  hasty  and  incestuous 
marriage.  He  sobs  audibly.  When  his 
"  uncle  father  "  addresses  him  — 

"  But  now  my  cousin  Hamlet,  and  my  son," 

he  answers  aside,  in  bitter  murmur  — 

"  A  little  more  than  kin,  and  less  than  kind." 

To  his  mother's  vague  generalization  about 
the  commonness  of  death,  he  answers  with 
restrained  respect  — 

"  Ay,  madam,  it  is  —  common." 

But  when  she  urges  a  question  of  cold  com- 
plaint, he  vindicates  the  profound  sincerity 
of  his  grief,  in  that  fine  speech  beginning  — 

"  Seems,  madam !  nay,  it  is." 

We  pause  upon  this  passage,  for  in  the  search- 
ing and  thoughtful  emphasis  he  gave  to  its 
delivery,  Mr.  Booth  struck  the  key-note  of 
Hamlet's  character,  the  depth  of  which 


HAMLET.  53 

neither  action  nor  language,  however  elo- 
quent or  effective,  could  ever  fully  reveal. 
"  He  had  that  within  which  passeth  show." 

Hamlet  is  left  alone,  and  instantly  unbur- 
dens his  heart  in  the  soliloquy  beginning  — 

"  0,  that  this  too,  too  solid  flesh  would  melt." 

Did  Shakespeare  intend  the  speech  to  be 
uttered  aloud,  or  only  mused  upon  ?  The 
question  becomes  pertinent,  in  view  of  Lamb's 
objection  to  the  stage  representation  of  the 
play,  where  he  speaks  of  Hamlet's  "light- 
and-noise-abhorring  ruminations."  We  think 
the  terse  vigor  of  the  language  would  find  a 
tongue.  It  did  find  an  eloquent  tongue  in 
our  actor.  The  jostle  of  thoughts,  the  im- 
patient leaps  of  emotion,  all  crowding  for 
utterance,  found  meet  expression  in  his  rapid 
and  changeful  delivery. 

"  Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman," 

as  if  no  other  name  were  needed. 

"  Married  with  mine  uncle  (paust,), 
My  father's  brother  "  (in  low  and  slighting  tones), 

then  without  pause  — 

"  But  no  more  like  my  father 
Than  I  to  Hercules." 

The  following  scene  is  chiefly  remarkable 


54  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

for  the  report  to  Hamlet  of  the  appearance 
of  the  ghost.  How  fit  that  this  disclosure 
should  be  made  by  Horatio,  whose  gracious, 
limited,  and  firm-seated  nature  becomes, 
from  this  moment,  coolness  to  the  fever, 
and  counterpoise  to  the  perturbation  of  his 
princely  friend,  even  to  the  closing  scene  of 
the  play,  when  Hamlet  lies  dead  in  his  arms ! 
The  spiritual  tone  Booth  imparted  to  this 
scene,  weighted  as  it  is  by  specific  questions 
and  answers,  as  to  the  time  and  aspect  of 
the  apparition,  raised  the  listener  at  once  into 
the  rare  atmosphere  of  Hamlet's  being,  and 
culminated  in  this  remarkable  soliloquy  :  — 

"  My  father's  spirit  —  in  arms  !    All  is  not  well ; 
I  doubt  some  foul  play :  would  the  night  were  come ! 
Till  then  sit  still,  my  soul :  foul  deeds  will  rise, 
Though  all  the  earth  o'erwhelm  them,  to  men's  eyes." 

Booth  uttered  the  words,  "  Foul  deeds  will 
rise,"  as  with  the  voice  of  Fate.  Then  came 
the  mighty  parenthesis,  "  Though  all  the 
earth  o'erwhelm  them,"  which  he  gave  with 
a  sweeping  gesture,  as  if  taking  the  solid 
earth,  and  lifting  it  as  a  wave  of  the  sea  is 
lifted,  and  letting  it  fall.  He  then  raised  a 
warning  hand,  with  significant  motion,  before 
his  face,  and  with  changed  voice,  couching 


HAMLET.  55 

strength  of  emphasis  on  a  lower  range  of 
tones,  resumed  the  suspended  meaning  — 
"  to  men's  eyes." 

In  the  platform  scene,  his  adjuration  of 
the  Spirit  reached  a  climax  of  feeling  in  the 
word  "father,"  into  which  he  threw  the 
agony  of  his  grief,  and  the  contending  hope 
and  fear  born  of  this  strange  visitation. 
After  a  momentary  pause,  the  figure  remain- 
ing silent,  Hamlet  recommences,  and  delivers 
without  pause  the  following :  — 

"  Royal  Dane,  0,  answer  me." 

In  all  editions  of  the  play,  there  is  a  colon 
after  "  Royal  Dane."  Booth  overruled  this 
pause,  with  a  more  subtle  perception  of  the 
meaning  of  the  passage  than  has  been  shown 
by  any  commentator. 

The  first  effect  of  the  sudden  apparition 
passes  rapidly  off;  and  Hamlet  soon  finds 
himself  in  strange  and  calm  accord  with  the 
silent  but  beckoning  visitor.  To  the  dissua- 
sion of  his  friends  he  says :  — 

"  Why.  what  should  be  the  fear? 
I  do  not  set  my  life  at  a  pin's  fee, 
And  for  my  soul,  what  can  it  do  to  that, 
Being  a  thing  immortal  —  as  itself  ?  " 

Booth's  manner  here  is  hard  to  analyze.     It 


56  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

may  suffice  to  say,  that  both  tone  and  action 
scaled  the  heights  of  spiritual  thought.  He 
seemed  to  have  digested  in  his  soul  the  very 
bitterness  of  death,  to  have  passed  beyond, 
and  to  speak  as  one  conscious  of  his  immor- 
tality. In  fine  contrast  came  the  passionate 
outbreak  — 

"  My  fate  cries  out 

And  makes  each  petty  artery  in  this  body 
As  hardy  as  the  Nemean  lion's  nerve." 

We  know  not  whether  the  action  origi- 
nated with  Mr.  Booth  or  not :  but  in  the 
scene  following  the  terrible  revelation  of  the 
Spirit,  when  his  friends  find  him,  and  he 
swears  them  to  secrecy,  Hamlet  holds  up 
the  hilt  of  his  sword,  the  cross,  and  not  the 
blade,  for  the  imposition  of  their  hands. 
We  have  seen,  both  in  picture  and  on  the 
stage,  the  hands  of  Horatio  and  Marcellus 
laid  along  the  blade.  In  this  scene,  the 
"antic  disposition,"  which  has  so  puzzled 
critic  and  actor,  begins  to  play.  In  Booth's 
conception,  this  was  partly  a  reaction  from 
the  pressure  of  supernatural  emotion  ;  and 
partly  assumed  as  a  disguise.  Its  fitful  light 
seemed  native  to  the  genius  of  our  actor.  It 
gave  variety  and  unexpectedness  in  look,  and 


HAMLET.  57 

tone,  and  action,  throughout  the  play.  It 
shone  above  the  melancholy,  like  phospho- 
rescence on  a  midnight  sea,  with  most  inten- 
sifying effect.  The  scenes  with  Polonius, 
where  Hamlet  plays  upon  him  ;  the  scenes 
with  his  school-fellows,  in  which  he  shows  he 
cannot  be  played  upon ;  and  the  scenes  with 
the  players,  are  instances  in  point. 

Ghost  (beneath).     Swear. 

Hamlet.    There  are  more    things  in  heaven  and  earth, 

Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy." 

A  light  scorn  in  the  last  word  :  and  his  hand 
passed  his  forehead,  with  a  gesture  equally 
light  and  evanescent. 

Perhaps  the  most  brilliant  example  of  that 
unexpectedness  which  is  genius  in  an  actor, 
as  if  he  indeed  were  the  character  assumed  ; 
as  if  the  thoughts  were  developed  from 
within,  and  the  language  occurred  to  him, 
might  be  found  in  the  passage  beginning  — 

"  I  have  of  late  (but  wherefore  I  know  not)  lost  all  my 
mirth." 

At  the  words,  "  This  most  excellent  canopy, 
the  air,  look  you,  —  this  brave  o'erhanging  " 
(he  omitted  the  word  "  firmament,"  as  in  the 
folio), "  this  majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden 


58  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

fire,"  —  his  voice,  sombre  and  husky  in  the 
preceding  lines,  suddenly  darted  upward  like 
light ;  seemed  to  penetrate  the  sky  ;  to  run 
all  over  the  firmament;  to  search  out  and 
give  back  the  remotest  echoes  of  heaven. 
The  speaker  was  for  the  moment  forgot,  — 

"  Hidden 
In  the  light  of  thought" 

"  He  that  plays  the  king  shall  be  wel- 
come," was  uttered  with  eager  emphasis,  a 
momentary  betrayal  by  Hamlet  of  his  inner 
thought ;  which  however  he  masks  immedi- 
ately, by  a  running  and  cheery  commentary 
on  the  other  players.  Hamlet  has  received, 
seen  through,  talked  with,  and  dismissed  his 
school-mates ;  puzzled  Polonius  by  subtle 
reaches  of  wit ;  welcomed  the  players  with  a 
volatile  and  princely  grace ;  shown  a  com- 
bined freedom  and  aptitude  in  all  this  sur- 
face-play of  mind,  this  "  whiff  and  wind  " 
of  thought,  over  the  deep  sea  of  his  sad 
spirit,  —  most  wonderful  in  Shakespeare,  and 
reproduced  by  Booth  as  in  a  mirror ;  until 
he  finds  himself  alone,  when  he  reveals  his 
latent  purpose  in  that  soliloquy  in  which  the 
lines  occur :  — 


HAMLET.  59 

"  I'll  have  these  players 
Play  something  like  the  murder  of  my  father 
Before  mine  uncle." 

and  closing  with  — 

"  The  play  's  the  thing 
Wherein  I'll  catch  the  conscience  of  the  king." 

Our  Shakespearean  scholar  found  fault 
with  an  emphasis,  after  the  act  was  done. 
"  Booth  emphasized  *  catch,'  "  said  he  ;  "  he 
should  have  emphasized  '  conscience.' "  Not 
so.  The  actor's  spontaneous  method  gave 
life  to  the  whole  passage.  He  really  empha- 
sized both  words,  and  all  in  due  relation. 
The  Third  Act  opened.  The  play  went 
on.  The  atmosphere  of  Hamlet,  with  whose 
very  being  Booth  was  for  the  time  con- 
substantiated,  enveloped  also  the  listening 
scholar,  and  gradually  nourished  him  out  of 
his  meagre  mood  of  verbal  criticism.  And 

O 

to  that  degree  did  the  influence  work,  that 
we  heard  him  uttering  unconscious  groans 
for  sympathy,  as  the  catastrophe  drew  near 
and  that  foreboding  illness,  "here  about 
the  heart,"  found  expression  in  tones  of 
mournful,  tender  trust :  — 

"  If  it  be  now,  'tis  not  to  come.    If  it  be  not  now,  yet  it 
will  come:  the  readiness  is  all.    Let  be." 


60  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

Hamlet  repeatedly  revolves  the  problem  of 
suicide.  We  have  seen  that  he  does  not 
"  set  his  life  at  a  pin's  fee ; "  but  his  con- 
science, the  very  strength  of  his  moral  na- 
ture, which  withholds  his  hand  from  attempt- 
ing his  own  life,  also  makes  him  fear  to  take 
that  of  the  king.  The  beginning  of  the 
meditation  "  To  be,  or  not  to  be  "  was  ut- 
tered in  a  voice  like  the  mystic  murmur  of  a 
river  running  under  ground,  and  required  an 
attentive  ear :  "  That  undiscovered  country  " 
(in  a  manner  unimaginably  remote)  "  from 
whose  bourn  no  traveller  returns  "  —  given 
with  accelerated  and  vibrating  intensity,  the 
stroke  of  emphasis  coming  suprisingly  on  the 
last  word.  It  shocked  the  elocutionist,  but 
delighted  the  Shakespearean  scholar. 

The  soliloquy  was  marked  by  a  curious 
reading,  thus :  — 

"  For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 


When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make." 

Here  he  made  a  full  stop.  Then,  as  if  be- 
ginning a  new  sentence,  and  without  pause 
in  the  delivery  of  it,  he  went  on  — 

"  With  a  bare  bodkin  who  would  fardels  bear,  etc. 

On  being  called  to  account  for  this  odd  read- 


HAMLET.  61 

ing,  he  affirmed,  that  "  bodkin  "  was  a  local 
term,  in  some  parts  of  England,  for  a  padded 
yoke,  worn  over  the  shoulders  for  the  sup- 
port of  burdens  on  either  side  ;  and  that  a 
"  bare  bodkin  "  was  a  yoke  without  the  pad, 
and  therefore  galling.  The  meaning  as- 
signed, has,  we  believe,  escaped  the  notice  of 
all  lexicographers. 

On  suddenly  discovering  Ophelia  —  his 
meditation  done  —  with  what  tremulous  ten- 
derness did  he  say  — 

"  Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered." 

In  the  acting  play,  Hamlet  is  made  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  king  and  his  minister  at 
espial :  the  discovery  being  intended  to  ac- 
count for  his  harshness  towards  Ophelia. 
We  find  no  warrant  for  this  in  Shakespeare. 
The  intuitive  Hamlet  knows,  it  is  true,  by 
Ophelia's  manner,  that  she  is  acting  a  part 
under  instructions.  But  we  think  every  one 
of  his  speeches  to  her  is  justified  by  his  own 
nature  ;  by  his  assumed  madness  ;  or  by  his 
endeavor  to  wipe  away  both  from  his  own 
mind  and  hers,  "  all  trivial  fond  records,"  so 
that  the  commandment  of  the  Spirit  "all 
alone  may  live  "  — 


62  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

"  Within  the  book  and  volume  of  his  brain  "  — 

and  all  without  supposing  him  to  be  aware  of 
other  listeners. 

In  spite  of  the  set  purpose,  his  deep  love 
bursts  forth  in  jets  of  passionate  tenderness. 
It  did  so  in  Mr.  Booth's  rendering.  He 
spoke  with  wildness  rather  than  severity. 
He  was  in  constant  action ;  striding  across 
the  stage  ;  passing  out,  still  speaking,  and 
beginning  the  next  speech  before  he  reen- 
tered.  We  seem  now  to  hear  his  voice  ring- 
ing, out  of  view,  the  phrase  — 

"  I  have  heard  of  your  paintings  too,  well  enough." 

Only  when  imploring  her  to  go  to  a  nunnery 
did  he  pause  in  action ;  then,  approaching 
her  tenderly,  he  threw  into  those  oft-repeated 
words  "  to  a  nunnery,  go,"  the  whole  force 
of  his  fervent  affection. 

Mr.  Macready  played  Hamlet  in  Boston, 
and  Cambridge  crowded  the  boxes  —  yes, 
and  applauded  too,  as  that  sensible  but  unim- 
aginative actor  gave  his  studied  version  of 
Hamlet's  idleness. 

Hamlet  (to  Horatio).    "  They  are  coming  to  the  play  ;  I 

must  be  idle : 
(Jet  you  a  place." 

Macready  seemed    unaccountably  to    have 


HAMLET.  63 

changed  natures  with  Osric  the  "  waterfly ;  " 
for  he  danced  before  the  foot-lights,  flirting  a 
white  handkerchief  above  his  head !  This 
was  that  "  famed  performer"  to  whom  Em- 
erson refers,  when  he  says :  "  All  I  then 
heard,  and  all  I  now  remember,  of  the  tra- 
gedian, was  that  in  which  the  tragedian  had 
no  part;  simply,  Hamlet's  question  to  the 
ghost  — 

'  What  may  this  mean, 

That  thou,  dead  corse,  again  in  complete  steel 
Revisit'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon?  '  " 

Booth's  idleness  was  Hamlet's.  He  re- 
tires up  the  stage,  passes  from  view,  and  re- 
appears like  a  shadow ;  is  lost  in  the  company 
that  enters  to  witness  the  play.  We  find 
him  next  at  Ophelia's  feet,  at  once  Mercury 
and  Nemesis,  the  lover's  wit  playing  airily 
above  the  avenging  purpose. 

(We  may  here  mention  that  in  the  year 
1831,  Mr.  Booth  became  the  temporary 
manager  of  a  theatre  in  Baltimore.  Mr. 
Charles  Kean  enacted  Hamlet.  Mr.  Booth, 
on  this  occasion,  assumed  the  part  of  Lu- 
cianus,  called  in  the  play-bills,  "  the  second 
actor,"  whose  whole  office  it  is  to  say  — 

"  Thoughts  black,  hands  apt,  drugs  fit,  and  time  agreeing; 
Confederate  season,  else  no  creature  seeing; 


64  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

Thou  mixture  rank,  of  midnight  weeds  collected, 
With  Hecate's  ban  thrice  blasted,  thrice  infected 
Thy  natural  magic  and  dire  property, 
On  wholesome  life  usurp  immediately." 

In  Booth's  delivery  of  these  fearful  lines, 
each  word  dropped  poison.  The  weird 
music  of  his  voice  and  the  stealthy  yet  de- 
cisive action,  made  this  brief  scene  the  mem- 
orable event  of  the  night.) 

The  king  does  blench  "  Upon  the  talk  of 
the  poisoning ; "  he  rises  "  frighted  with  false 
fire."  The  play  within  the  play  abruptly 
ends.  Hamlet  is  left  alone.  To  him  come, 
first  his  traitor  school-fellows;  then  the 
meddling  Polonius,  envoys  of  the  king  and 
queen. 

In  two  lines  of  the  short  soliloquy  which 
follows,  the  tragedian  indicated,  by  a  master- 
stroke of  intonation  and  expression,  the  span 
and  sweep  of  Hamlet's  nature :  the  restrain- 
ing force  of  will,  acting  as  counterpoise  to 
the  momentum  of  his  feelings. 

"  Soft;  now  to  my  mother. 
0  heart,  lose  not  thy  nature ;  let  not  ever 
The  soul  of  Nero  enter  this  firm  bosom." 

The  thought  of  Nero's  crime  seemed  sud- 
denly to  occur  to  him,  to  fill  him  with  hor- 


HAMLET.  65 

ror,  and  to  lend  to  the  word  "  Nero  "  a  stir- 
prising  repulsion  of  gesture  and  emphasis. 

These  lines  were  a  fit  prologue  to  the 
great  scene  of  the  play,  in  the  Third  Act, 
the  interview  with  his  mother.  The  strong 
current,  the  earnest  pleading,  the  impas- 
sioned conscience,  the  noble  purpose,  the 
intense  personal  life,  made  manifest  by  Mr. 
Booth  in  this  scene,  might  serve  as  a  study 
for  those,  who,  impressed  by  a  single  trait  in 
this  "  abstract  and  brief  chronicle  "  of  civ- 
ilized man  —  this  Hamlet  —  weakly  conclude 
him  to  be  full  of  weakness,  and  of  a  melan- 
choly .born  of  weakness.  His  melancholy 
was  born  of  his  strength. 

"  Mother,  you  have  —  my  father  —  much  offended." 

"  Come,  come,  and  sit  you  down ;  you  shall  not  budge ; 
You  go  not,  till  I  set  you  up  a  glass 
Where  you  shall  see  the  iw-most  part  of  you!  " 

He  had  already  said  — 

"  I  will  speak  —  daggers  to  her." 

That  word  "  inmost "  touched  the  core  of 
the  matter.  The  sound  of  it,  greatly  pro- 
longed on  the  first  syllable,  was  like  a  search- 
ing probe  of  steel.  After  he  had  killed  Po- 
lonius,  mistaking  him  for  the  king,  he  gave 
separately  each  word  of  the  line  — 


66  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

"  Thou  wretched,  rash,  intruding  fool,  farewell ! " 

and  all  with  ascending  emphasis,  in  tones  of 
mingled  grief  and  anger,  and  as  if  dashed 
with  tears. 

What  exalted  passion  is  in  the  continuing 
portion  of  this  scene  !  In  the  comparison  of 
the  portraits,  what  dramatic  action,  thought, 
imagery,  language  !  We  know  this  tribute 
belongs  to  Shakespeare.  We  make  it,  look- 
ing towards  him,  where  he  sits,  in  the  glory 
and  beatitude  of  his  own  peculiar  heaven. 
All  we  claim  for  Mr.  Booth,  all  that  can  be 
claimed  for  any  actor,  is,  that  he  shall,  by 
the  power  of  imaginative  sympathy,  pass 
himself,  and  draw  us  after,  into  the  strong 
current  of  Shakespeare's  thought ;  shall  re- 
mould and  rekindle  to  our  attentive  senses, 
the  individuality  of  his  unmatched  char- 
acters. 

Looking  on  tfce  picture  of  his  father  he 
says  — 

"  Where  every  god,  did  seem  to  set  his  seal." 


"This — was  —  your  husband"  (kissing  the  picture  and  in 
a  voice  that  sheathed  affection  for  his  father,  in  reprobation  for 
his  mother).  "Look  you  now  what  follows"  (with  startling 
change  of  manner)  — 


HAMLET.  67 

"  Here  is-s-s  your  husband,  like  a  mildewed  ear 
Blasting  his  wholesome  brother!  " 

The  words  of  this  phrase  were  shaken  and 
eddied  over  by  one  continuing  flood  of  tone  ; 
in  obedience  to  a  passionate  method,  most 
expressive  and  quite  peculiar  to  our  actor. 

At  the  opportune  moment,  when  the  heat 
of  his  indignation  finds  expression  thus  — 
"  A  murderer  and  a  villain ; 

A  cutpurse  of  the  empire  and  the  rule," 

the  ghost  appears.  There  seemed  to  pass 
over  Booth's  features  an  instant  baptism  of 
devotion.  All  anger  vanished.  The  out- 
reaching  and  imploring  look  in  his  full  blue 
eyes,  arching  the  inner  angles  of  the  brows, 
gave  the  face  a  tender  exaltation,  as  he  be- 
gan that  strange  colloquy  between  Hamlet, 
his  guilty  mother,  and  his  father's  spirit, 
with  the  words  — 

"  What  would  your  gracious  figure?  " 
During  the  presence  of  the  ghost,  until 
just  before  its  exit  at  the  opposite  door, 
Booth  stood  rooted  to  the  spot  from  which 
he  first  saw  it  ;  stood  with  steady  gaze,  out- 
stretched hands,  and  such  pathetic  reverence 
of  voice  and  action,  that,  though  we  looked 


68  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

and  listened  then  in  a  mood  above  weeping, 
yet  the  memory  of  it  surprises  us,  as  we 
write,  *'  unto  the  brink  of  tears." 

Ghost.    "  Speak  to  her,  Hamlet." 

Ham.     (Still  looking  at  the  ghost.)    "  How  is  it  with  you, 

lady?" 

Queen.    "  Whereon  do  you  look  ?" 

Ham.      "  On  him,  on  him"  (aa  if  the  question  were  idle; 
as  if  she  must  see  the  figure  also). 

In  the  oft-quoted  passage  — 

"  Assume  a  virtue  if  you  have  it  not," 

Booth  paused  after  "  virtue,"  then  uttered 
the  words,  "  if  you  have  it  not,"  as  if  a 
spring  of  love  gushed  in  his  heart,  and  he 
caught  at  a  hope,  that  she  might  have  re- 
pented already. 

In  the  grave-yard  scene,  after  he  has 
matched  wit  with  the  clown,  and  given 
another  example  of  that  blended  airiness  and 
melancholy  which  seemed  the  very  form  of 
Shakespeare's  thought,  the  funeral  proces- 
sion of  Ophelia  enters. 

Hamlet  (to  Horatio).    "  That  is  Laertes, 
A  very  noble  youth:  mark  "  — 

uttered  with  perfect  simplicity  and  generous 
high  breeding.  Perhaps  in  qualification  of  an 
opinion  heretofore  expressed,  the  princeliness 


BAM  LET.  69 

came  out  more  strongly  in  Mr.  Booth's  de- 
lineation of  these  later  scenes.  When  Laer- 
tes says  — 

"A  ministering  angel  shall  my  sister  be," 

Hamlet,  according  to  the  text,  utters  the 
exclamation  — 

"  What!  the  fair  Ophelia!  " 

No  syllable  of  this  phrase  could  be  heard. 
Only  a  wild,  inarticulate  cry  escaped  him  ; 
and  he  muffled  his  face  in  his  cloak.  He 
seemed  to  have  gone  behind  Shakespeare's 
language,  into  Shakespeare's  thought. 

Following  this  fine  touch  of  feeling  and 
character,  came  what  seems  to  us  a  wholly 
unauthorized  reading :  — 

"  What  is  he  whose  grief 

Bears  such  an  emphasis  ?  whose  phrase  of  sorrow 
Conjures  the  wandering  stars,  and  bids  them  stand 
Like  wonder-wounded  hearers  ?    This  is  I, 
Hamlet  the  Dane." 

So  Shakespeare  ;  but  Booth  made  a  full  stop 
after  the  word  "  stand  ;  "  then  said  — 

"  Look !  wonder-wounded  hearers,  this  is  I,"  etc. 

The  scene,  however,  was  grandly  carried  to 
completion.  The  storm  of  mingled  grief  and 
love  for  the  dead  Ophelia  ;  of  anger  breaking 
through  respect,  for  Laertes,  could  never 


70  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

have  had  a  more  characteristic  representa- 
tion. 

Hamlet  consents  to  play  the  wager  with 
Laertes,  but  is  possessed  by  a  presentiment 
of  evil.  We  had  heard  Mr.  Booth  give  the 
passage  thus :  — 

"  It  is  but  foolery,  but  it  is  such  a  kind  of  gain-giving  as 
would,  perhaps  (slight  pause,  then  in  lower  tone),  trouble  a 
woman," 

meaning,  "  it  ought  not  to  trouble  me,  a 
man,  yet  I  feel  it  does."  On  this  occasion  he 
said  — 

"  As  would,  perhaps,  trouble  (slight pause)  a  woman," 

meaning,  "  but  shall  not  trouble  me."  How 
fine  the  sentiment,  how  delicate  the  appre- 
hension, that  could  dictate  these  distinctions. 
The  wavering  balance  inclines  toward  the 
latter  reading  ;  for  to  Horatio's  friendly  dis- 
suasion, Hamlet  immediately  rejoins — "Not 
a  whit ;  we  defy  augury ;  there  is  a  special 
providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow."  Rufus 
Choate  said,  "  I  have  seen  him  act  Hamlet 
exquisitely  :  "  and  again,  in  comparing  Kean 
and  Booth,  he  said,  "  This  man  (Booth)  has 
finer  touches." 

The  last  scene  was  full  of  grace  and  dra- 
matic truth,  in  the  fencing  match  with  Laer- 


HAMLET.  71 

tes,  and  in  its  accumulation  of  tragical  results. 
Well  might  Fortinbras,  coming  in  peaceful 
march  from  recent  victory,  exclaim  — 

"  O,  proud  Death ! 

What  feast  is  toward  in  thine  eternal  cell, 
That  thou  so  many  princes,  at  a  shot, 
So  bloodily  hast  struck?  " 

Dullness  no  doubt  in  us,  in  early  readings 
of  the  play,  but  we  confess  our  indebtedness 
to  Mr.  Booth,  for  the  true  meaning  of  a  line 
in  Hamlet's  last  speech.  After  he  has  wrested 
the  poisoned  cup  from  Horatio's  hand,  he 
says  — 

"  If  thou  didst  ever  hold  me  in  thy  heart, 
Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile, 
A.nd  in  this  harsh  world  draw  thy  breath  in  pain, 
To  tell  my  story." 

Striving  against  the  poison  at  work  in  his 
own  frame,  he  begs  Horatio  to  live,  and  lifts 
his  hand  toward  that  heaven  whither  he  felt 
his  noble  friend  would  go,  saying  — 

"  Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile." 

We  have  taken  more  copious  notes  of 
Booth's  Hamlet  than  of  any  other  character 
assumed  by  him.  But  in  reviewing  the  mis- 
cellany, something  of  Antony's  impatience 
at  the  prolixity  of  his  messenger  from  Rome, 
prompts  us  to  exclaim:  "  Grates  me:  the 


72  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

sum  !  "  What  is  the  sum  of  Hamlet ;  what 
the  personal  unity  of  that  marvelous  and 
various  life  ?  We  venture  no  opinion.  But 
the  total  impression  left  by  Mr.  Booth's  per- 
sonation, at  the  time  of  its  occurrence,  and 
which  still  abides,  was  that  of  a  spiritual 
melancholy,  at  once  acute  and  profound. 
This  quality  colored  his  tenderest  feeling 
and  his  airiest  fancy  as  well  as  his  graver 
purpose.  You  felt  its  presence  even  when 
he  was  off  the  stage.  As  the  Claude  mirror 
defines,  refines,  and  tones  the  landscape,  so 
Booth's  impersonation  lent  a  saddened  and 
mysterious  charm  to  the  vast  world  of  Ham- 
let's thought  and  observation. 


SHYLOCK. 

THE  Hebrew  blood,  which,  from  some  re- 
mote ancestor,  mingled  in  the  current  of  his 
life ;  and  was  evidently  traceable  in  his 
features  ;  and  haply  determined  the  family 
name  (Booth  from  Beth,  Hebrew  for  house, 
or  nest  for  birds),  did  also  undoubtedly  in- 
fluence Mr.  Booth's  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  Shylock. 

He  made  it  the  representative  Hebrew : 
the  type  of  a  race,  old  as  the  world.  He 
drew  the  character  in  lines  of  simple  grand- 
eur, and  filled  it  with  fiery  energy.  In  his 
hands,  it  was  marked  by  pride  of  intellect ; 
by  intense  pride  of  race  ;  by  a  reserved  force, 
as  if  there  centered  in  him  the  might  of  a 
people  whom  neither  time,  nor  scorn,  nor 
political  oppression  could  subdue  ;  and  which 
has  at  successive  periods,  even  down  to  our 
own  day,  drawn  the  attention  of  mankind 
towards  its  frequent  examples  of  intellectual 
power.  His  pronunciation  of  the  words  — 


74  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

"  This  Jacob  from  our  holy  Abraham  was," 

carried  the  mind  back  into  the  remotest  an- 
tiquity, and  begat  an  involuntary  respect  for 
the  speaker. 

The  intense  realism  of  Edmund  Kean 
made  Shylock  merely  a  malignant  usurer  ; 
and  so  represented,  to  our  thinking,  rather 
Gratiano's  idea  of  the  Jew,  than  Shakes- 
peare's. But  Kean,  after  making  the  audi- 
ance  hate  him,  did,  by  one  of  his  sudden 
turns  of  power,  and  by  the  pathos  of  his 
voice,  in  the  passage  beginning  — 

"  Nay,  take  my  life  and  all," 

produce  an  entire  revulsion  of  feeling  in  the 
listener,  so  that  pity  took  the  place  of  ex- 
ecration. 

Booth,  on  the  contrary,  whether  for  better 
or  worse,  made  usury  the  Jew's  accidental 
or  enforced  employment ;  and  avarice,  which 
is  the  natural  ally  of  such  employment, 
rather  a  graft  on  his  nature  than  a  part  of 
the  original  stock.  He  disdained  all  appeal 
to  the  compassion  of  his  judges.  He  gave 
the  passage  quoted  only  as  a  softened  ex- 
pression of  that  inexorable  logic,  which  in 
other  scenes,  yields  a  certain  dignity  to  the 
character,  and  wins  our  reluctant  regard. 


KEYLOCK.  75 

Geo.  Frederick  Cooke,  in  the  passage  be- 
ginning "  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  "  when  he 
came  to  the  word  "  affections,"  so  informed 
it  with  human  feeling,  so  contrasted  it  Avith 
the  context,  that  it  remains  as  the  marked 
point  of  his  performance.  But  if  Kean's 
abject  appeal  for  the  means  of  living,  when 
Shylock  was  utterly  ruined,  be  doubtful ; 
Cooke's  turning  the  Jew  out  of  the  current 
of  his  reasoning  wrath,  when  he  had  wealth 
and  power,  and  was  rejoicing  in  the  pros- 
pect of  revenge,  —  in  order  to  complain  of 
his  wounded  affections,  —  seems  at  best  but  a 
tempting  error  of  conception.  Booth,  on  the 
contrary,  gave  no  prominence  to  his  affec- 
tions ;  but  did,  as  we  believe  Shakespeare 
intended,  evenly  include  them  in  that  in- 
ventory of  the  qualities  and  conditions  of 
man,  on  which  Shylock  based  his  claim  to  be 
respected  as  a  man. 

Shylock  develops  the  strongest  traits  of 
his  character  in  the  very  first  scene.  Ob- 
serve the  cautious  self-satisfaction  with  which 
he  Ijolds  and  plies  the  reins  of  monetary 
power,  in  his  interview  with  Bassanio  and 
Antonio.  Yet  the  Hebrew  stands  back  of 
and  above  the  usurer.  He  says,  musing  on 
Antonio  — 


7t>  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

"  If  I  can  catch  him  once  upon  the  hip, 
I  will  feed  fat  the  ancient  grudge  I  bear  him. 
He  hates  our  sacred  nation." 

Again  — 

"  What!  are  there  masques?    Hear  you  me,  Jessica: 
Lock  up  my  doors        .... 

Let  not  the  sound  of  shallow  foppery,  enter 
My  sober  house." 

Perhaps  the  grandest  performance  of  Shy- 
lock  ever  given  by  Mr.  Booth,  or  any  other, 
was  on  the  third  of  September,  1850,  during 
his  last  engagement  before  going  to  Califor- 
nia. He  was  in  perfect  physical  condition. 
His  voice  was  still  capable  of  that  unfath- 
omed  resonance,  which  told  in  the  settled 
revengeful  purpose  of  the  part.  The  gen- 
eral conception  was  as  we  have  indicated. 

The  Third  Act  opened.  Salanio  and 
Salarino  are  conversing  of  Antonio's  losses. 
Shylock  enters,  having  just  found  out  Jes- 
sica's theft,  and  heard  of  her  elopement. 
He  should  say,  "  You  knew,  none  so  well  as 
you,  of  my  daughter's  flight."  But  no  word 
could  we  distinguish.  His  voice  see.med 
molten  by  passion,  before  it  could  be  shaped 
into  words,  and  so  leaped  from  his  lips,  a 
volcanic  eruption  of  inarticulate  speech. 


SHYLOCK.  77 

This  as  he  was  coming  in.  When  fairly  on 
the  scene,  the  fire  retreats  inward.  He  im- 
mediately proves  himself  an  overmatch  for 
the  lighter  wit  of  the  two  Venetian  gallants. 
One  of  them  makes  a  feeble  rally,  then  they 
stand  silent,  and  receive  without  further  par- 
ley his  tremendous  questioning. 

The  fiery  scorn  he  threw  into  the  words 

..."  A  bankrupt  —  a  prodigal  .  .  .  that  used  to 
come  so  smug  upon  the  mart.  .  .  .  He  was  wont  to  call 
me  usurer.  Let  him  look  to  his  bond." 

And  he  strode  down  the  stage  to  the  farthest 
corner,  the  white  fire  of  his  anger  writhing 
in  his  face,  animating  his  tread,  and  flying 
out  in  his  wild  but  determinate  gesture. 

Salarino.  "  Why  I  am  sure  if  he  forfeit,  thou  wilt  not  take 
his  flesh :  what's  that  good  for  ?  " 

Shylock  (turning  suddenly).     "  To  bait  fish  withal." 

We  have  heard  Mr.  Booth,  in  one  of  his 
tamer  moods,  say  this  with  a  gesture  as  if 
holding  a  fishing-rod.  But  on  this  occasion, 
with  a  gesture  inexpressibly  violent  and 
rapid,  he  seemed  to  be  tearing  the  flesh,  and 
throwing  it  into  the  sea. 

The  whole  of  the  next  speech  rode  on  a 
mighty  tide  of  passion,  gathering,  acceler- 
ating, rushing  due  on,  but  broken  sometimes 


78  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

by  fearful  pauses  of  thought,  followed  by 
smiting  blows  of  logic,  like  the  hush  before 
the  thunder-stroke.  How  those  questions 
came,  winged  and  edged  with  scorn,  solid  as 
the  substance  of  thought,  fiery  and  irresisti- 
ble as  the  motion  of  passion  ! 

Nor  can  we  tell  from  what  depth  of  vigor 
arose  the  grand  and  various  expression  of 
the  next  scene,  directly  after,  on  the  en- 
trance of  Tubal.  Let  the  reader  review  the 
text. 

"  No  ill  luck  stirring  but  what  lights  o'  my  shoulders. 
.  .  .  .  No  tears  but  o'  my  shedding." 

'  I  thank  God,  I  thank  God." 

•  Good  news.    Ha !  ha !  ha !  " 

'  Thou  slickest  a  dagger  in  me !  " 

'  I  am  glad  of  it.    I'll  torture  him.    I  am  glad  of  it." 

'  I  would  not  have  given  it  for  a  wilderness  of  monkeys." 

'  I  will  have  the  heart  of  him  if  he  forfeit." 

'  Go,  Tubal,  and  meet  me  at  our  Synagogue,  at  our  Syna- 
gogue, Tubal." 

All  given  with  glowing  passion,  and  fine 
artistic  changes. 

In  the  fourth  act,  Booth  enters  the  court- 
room, calm,  his  tumult  of  passion  condensed 
into  a  settled  purpose ;  and  with  a  kind  of 
dignity,  if  unrelenting  hate  like  his  can  bear 
that  quality.  From  the  audience,  he  listens 
to  the  Duke,  then  quietly  begins  :  — 


SRYLOCK.  79 

"  1  have  possessed  your  Grace  of  what  I  purpose ; 
And  by  our  holy  Sabbath  have  I  sioorn 
To  have  the  due  and  forfeit  of  my  bond: 
If  you  deny  it,  let  the  danger  light 
Upon  your  charter,  and  your  city's  freedom." 

The  last  two  lines  were  given  with  an 
outreaching  and  arching  motion  of  the  arm 
and  hand,  palm  downward,  like  the  stoop  of 
a  bird  of  prey. 

We  feel  the  pressure  of  the  intense  pas- 
sionate purpose,  below  the  logic,  in  his  short 
colloquies  with  Bassanio  and-Gratanio,  and  in 
his  longer  speeches  to  the  court  —  till  Portia, 
as  the  Doctor,  enters,  and  speaks  of  mercy 
and  the  law.  Against  her  plea  for  mercy, 
as  against  the  twice-blessed  quality  itself, 
Shylock  sets  his  face  like  a  flint ;  but  as  his 
religion  moved  him,  at  the  mention  of  the 
name  of  God,  Booth  folded  his  arms  upon 
his  breast,  and  bowed  his  head  in  reverence. 
"  My  deeds  upon  my  head!  " 

exclaims  Shylock.  As  Christ  was  mercy, 
there  may  have  been  floating  in  Shakespeare's 
mind  that  other  fearful  imprecation,  "  His 
blood  be  on  us  and  on  our  children."  The 
dark  effluence  of  the  same  spirit  appears  in 
the  language  of  the  Jew.  Booth  gave  the 
words  with  solid  force,  as  after,  in  saying  :  — • 


80  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

"  An  oath,  an  oath,  I  have  an  oath  in  heaven : 
Shall  I  lay  perjury  upon  my  soul? 
No,  not  for  Venice," 

he  stood  a  type  of  the  religion  of  the  law. 

The  crisis  of  the  play  arrives.  Shylock 
finds  his  "justice  "  a  two-edged  sword,  and 
is  suffering  from  the  unexpected  stroke  of  it. 
Foiled  of  the  penalty  he  craves,  he  says  :  — 

"I take  this  offer  then:  pay  the  bond  thrice, 
And  let  —  the  Christian  —  go,"  — 

uttered  between  set  teeth,  and  with  repeated 
gesture  of  repulsion  :  still  holding  to  the  last, 
his  pride  of  faith  as  the  dominant  element  of 
his  cruel  mind. 


IAGO. 

AN  actor  is  the  only  innocent  hypocrite. 
That  a  man  of  Mr.  Booth's  probity  and  gen- 
erosity of  soul,  should  have  so  insphered  the 
character  of  lago  as  to  make  it  one  of  his 
most  admirable  and  popular  representations, 
is  a  case  in  point.  lago  seems  not  so  much 
a  debauched  intelligence  as  an  intelligence 
which  had  been  the  devil's  own  from  the 
beginning.  Yet  his  diabolism  was  not  of 
that  kind  which  delights  primarily  in  others' 
pain.  It  consisted  rather  in  an  unresting 
intellectual  activity,  without  moral  principle 
or  human  feeling. 

He  is  a  constitutional  liar.  He  brags  of  it. 
In  audacious  contrast  to  Him  who  said,  "  I 
am  that  I  am,"  lago  says,  "  I  am  not  what  I 
am."  Danger  and  crime  are  necessary  to 
give  scope  to  the  action  of  his  fertile  brain. 
He  is  the  embodiment  of  spiritual  wickedness 
in  human  character.  And  we  must  resort 
to  this  paradox,  in  order  to  make  him  human  ; 
that  he  seeks  for  motives,  which  are  in  them- 

6 


82  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

selves  criminal,  in  order  to  justify  the  pro- 
ceeding of  his  spontaneous  malignity.  He  is 
the  parent  of  many  a  villain  in  more  recent 
literary  art.  The  Mephistopheles  of  Goethe 
is  of  his  family,  at  the  least  a  cousin-german. 
But  Goethe  slights  his  fiend  into  heaven,  and 
gives  him  preternatural  power  to  work  mis- 
chief on  the  earth:  while  lago's  successes 
(which  are  only  postponed  failures)  are  the 
mere  product  of  his  busy  brain,  and  his 
plumed-up  will.  He  "  works  by  wit,  and 
not  by  witchcraft." 

Hazlitt  says  that  Kean  made  lago  "  a  gay 
light-hearted  monster;  a  careless,  cordial, 
comfortable  villain."  Booth  gave  quite 
another  version.  His  conception  was  satur- 
nine ;  but  the  expression  of  it  was  strangely 
swift  and  brilliant.  He  showed  the  dense 
force,  the  stealth,  the  velvet-footed  grace  of 
the  panther ;  the  subtlety,  the  fascination, 
the  rapid  stroke  of  the  fanged  serpent.  There 
was  less  variation  in  his  performances,  one 
from  the  other,  of  this  part,  than  he  exhibited 
in  the  portrayal  of  any  other  Shakespearean 
character.  Whatever  difference  did  exist, 
lay  in  the  greater  or  less  intensity  of  the  rep- 
resentation. 


I  A  GO.  83 

On  the  15th  of  September,  1847,  as  we 
most  vividly  remember,  he  was  possessed  by 
his  most  splendid  devil.  He  came  on  the 
stage,  clear  as  spirit,  and  the  voice  he  used 
was  that  most  sweet  and  audible,  deep-re- 
volving bass.  He  "  talked  far  above  sing- 
ing." His  delivery  of  the  text  was  a  master- 
piece of  colloquial  style.  It  had  all  the 
abrupt  turns,  the  tones  of  nature,  the  unex- 
pectedness, and  the  occasional  persuasive 
force,  which  belong  to  the  best  conversation. 

In  the  first  scene,  having  quieted  Rod- 
erigo's  complaints,  he  breaks  out  with  — 

"  Call  up  her  father; 
Rouse   him  (that  it,  Othello),  make  after  him,  poison  his 

delight, 

Proclaim  him  in  the  streets ;  incense  her  kinsmen, 
And  though  he  in  a  fertile  climate  dwell, 
Plague  him  with  flies:   though  that  his  joy  be  joy, 
Yet  throw  such  changes  of  vexation  on 't, 
As  it  may  lose  some  color." 

Observe  the  rapid  alternation  of  subject 
in  these  lines,  and  the  chasing  up  of  mis- 
chievous suggestion  they  contain. 

Roderigo.     Here  is  her  father's  house :  I'll  call  aloud. 
Jago.  Do  with  like  timorous  accent  and  dire  yell, 

As  when  (by  night  and  negligence)  the  fire 

Is  spied  in  populous  cities. 

There  was  no  heat  in  this  passage.     Booth 


84  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

uttered  it  with  a  devilish  unconcern,  as  if 
pleased  with  the  fancy  of  terror  and  dismay, 
and  playing  meanwhile  with  his  sword-hilt, 
or  pulling  at  his  gauntlets.  He  then  strikes 
on  the  door  of  Brabantio's  house,  and  speak- 
ing through  the  key-hole,  sounds  the  reso- 
nant alarm,  "  What,  ho,  Brabantio !  "  Yet  in 
saying  this,  we  felt  that  his  mind  was  "  play- 
ing with  some  inward  bait."  The  duplicity, 
the  double  nature,  the  devil  in  him,  was 
subtly  manifest. 

After  Roderigo  has  made  himself  known 
in  the  darkness,  and  while  Brabantio,  from 
the  window,  is  uttering  his  peevish  personal- 
ities, why  cannot  some  actor  who  represents 
the  "  silly  gentleman,"  make  him  interrupt 
the  old  man  at  intervals,  in  order  to  get  a 
hearing,  instead  of  repeating  "  Sir,  sir,  sir," 
all  at  once,  as  is  invariably  done  upon  the 
stage?  and  which  indeed  is  in  the  text  so 
set  down. 

While  we  are  in  the  mood  of  complaint, 
let  us  note  the  ludicrous  error,  usually  com- 
mitted by  actors,  in  lago's  next  speech  : 

"  Zounds,  sir,  you  are  one  of  those  that  will  not  serve  God, 
if  the  devil  bid  you." 

In   which   they   bring   down   the   emphasis 


I  AGO.  85 

plump  on  "  devil,"  as  if  the  highest  motive 
for  serving  God,  were  the  devil's  bidding ! 
Booth  said :  "  that  will  not  serve  Grod,  if  the 
devil  bid  you,"  giving  the  plain  meaning, 
that  the  devil's  bidding  was  no  argument 
against  serving  God. 

In  the  first  scene,  lago  enters,  lying  to 
Roderigo.  In  the  second  he  enters,  lying  to 
Othello  about  Roderigo.  In  the  third,  he  is 
a  silent  attendant  during  the  trial  of  Othello's 
marriage.  But  no  one  who  saw  Mr.  Booth 
in  any  of  these  scenes,  either  speaking  or 
silent,  could  escape  the  impression  of  the 
presence  of  a  malign  and  potent  intellect. 

The  second  act  opens  in  Cyprus.  Desde- 
mona  is  waiting  and  anxious  for  the  arrival 

O 

of  Othello.     She  says  :  — 

"  I  am  not  merry ;  but  I  do  beguile 
The  thing  I  am  by  seeming  otherwise.  — 
Come,  how  would' st  thou  praise  me?  " 

In  lago's  reply,  with  his  invented  rhymes, 
Booth  showed  that  nature  in  art,  which 
was  one  felicity  of  his  genius.  He  was  a 
poet  caught  in  the  very  act  of  invention  ; 
with  just  those  pauses,  abstractions,  flashes, 
and  occasional  career  of  speech,  when  a  line 
or  two  came  out  entire  —  which  befit  the 
passage. 


86  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

The  ambition  of  many  actors  is  to  make 
the  sound  an  echo  to  the  sense.  Booth  used 
his  grand  voice,  not  as  echo,  but  as  inter- 
preter. His  imagination  was  so  penetrative, 
that  he  did  not  stop  at  the  imagery,  but 
voiced  the  thought  or  emotion  imaged.  In 
simple  passages,  however,  where  the  ring,  or 
hum,  or  buzz,  or  plunge,  or  clang,  or  sus- 
piration,  of  the  words,  is  identical  with  their 
meaning,  as  was  the  case  in  the  early  days 
of  human  speech,  nothing  could  exceed  the 
sphered  beauty  of  that  tongue's  utterance. 
An  example  occurred  in  lago,  on  the  night 
in  question.  He  exclaims :  "  The  Moor !  I 
know  his  trumpet."  He  gave  the  word, 
with  the  very  sound  of  the  instrument ;  and 
tossed  it  from  his  lips  with  the  careless 
grace  of  an  accomplished  musician.  The 
sound  startled  from  his  dull  mood  one  critic 
in  the  audience,  and  kept  him  an  alert  lis- 
tener for  the  remainder  of  the  play.  In  the 
self-betraying  soliloquy  that  concludes  this 
scene,  occur  the  lines  — 

"  Now  I  do  love  her  too : 
Not  out  of  absolute  lust  (though  perad venture 
I  stand  accountant  for  as  great  a  sin  "). 

The  gratuitous  fiendishness  contained  in  this 


I  A  GO.  87 

parenthesis,  Booth  illustrated,  by  looking  up 
to  heaven  with  defiant  forehead  and  gesture, 
and  with  a  cold  and  mocking  smile. 

lago  has  fooled  Roderigo  to  the  top  of  his 
bent ;  made  Cassio  drunk  —  too  drunk,  and 
vulgarly  so,  most  actors  make  him  —  a  quar- 
rel follows,  the  town  rises,  and  Othello  ap- 
pears, lago  is  called  on  for  explanation, 
and  finds  himself  in  just  those  circumstances 
which  give  a  stinging  relish  to  the  motion 
of  his  mind.  How  he  stood,  still,  but  with 
a  quick  spirit  in  every  fibre,  between  the 
roused  Othello  and  the  drunken  Cassio,  vig- 
ilant, vital,  ready  for  the  unknown  emer- 
gency, and  with  an  invention  whose  play 
was  "  easy  as  lying !  " 

He  reached  the  acme  of  hypocrisy  in  the 
passage  beginning  — 

"  Touch  me  not  so  near: 

I  had  rather  have  this  tongue  cut  from  my  mouth 
Than  it  should  do  offense  to  Michael  Cassio !  " 

When  left  alone  with  Cassio,  lago  says  :  — 

"  As  I  am  an  honest  man  I  thought  you  had  received  some 
bodily  wound." 

The  simpler  meaning  is  conveyed,  by  the 
usual  emphasis  on  "  bodily."  But  this  em- 
phasis would  oppose  bodily  to  spiritual 


88  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

wounds,  and  lago  has  no  faith  in  the  latter. 
Booth,  with  fine  penetration,  said,  "  I  thought 
you  had  received  some  bodily  wound"  em- 
phasizing both  words,  as  if  there  were  no 
other  wounds  to  suffer  from.  And  we  find 
him  directly  after  blowing  "  reputation,"  the 
loss  of  which  Cassio  so  deplores,  like  a  bub- 
ble, into  thin  air. 

With  what  amazing  fertility  of  evil  re- 
source has  Shakespeare  invested  lago :  and 
what  subtlety  of  adaptation  did  Booth  ex- 
hibit in  those  soliloquies,  wherein  he  "  plumes 
up  his  will ;  "  and  in  the  varied  play  of  fac- 
ulty he  brings  to  bear  on  the  other  charac- 
ters of  the  drama !  We  dare  not  attempt 
to  analyze  his  look,  tone,  manner,  the  unde- 
finable  efflux  of  wickedness,  under  the  guise 
of  friendship,  by  which,  in  the  Third  Act, 
he  obtains  the  mastery  over  Othello's  mind. 
One  or  two  points  may  bear  specific  mention. 
Finding  the  suspicion  he  has  awakened  in 
the  Moor,  applies  alone  to  Cassio,  leaving 
Desdemona  yet  clear  of  it,  lago  says : 

"  Good  name  in  man  —  and  woman  —  dear  my  lord 
Is  the  immediate  jewel  of  their  souls." 

Isolating  the  words  "and  woman"  by  a 
pause  before  and  after,  and  completing  the 


IAGO.  89 

isolation  by  uttering  them  in  an  altered, 
clear,  low  tone,  he  aims  directly  at  Othello's 
heart,  and  plants  in  it  the  first  surmise  of 
his  wife's  infidelity. 

His  addresses  to  Othello  had  a  fearful 
symmetry  of  falsehood.  He  lied  so  like 
truth,  that  had  we  been  in  Othello's  place, 
we  felt  he  would  have  deceived  us  too. 
His  soliloquies,  and  those  looks  and  slight 
gestures  aside,  alone  revealed  his  true  char- 
acter. Between  his  assumed  friendship,  and 
these  tokens  of  self-betrayal,  he  passed  with 
incredible  rapidity  of  transition  ;  and  did  it 
with  a  keen  relish,  an  intense  gust  of  iniquity. 
Yet  was  the  odiousness  of  lago's  nature 
lightened  and  carried  off  by  the  grace  and 
force  of  Booth's  representation.  For,  dis- 
guise it  as  we  may,  the  love  of  power  is  so 
natural  to  man,  that  we  take  an  unmeasured 
delight  in  the  exhibition  of  power,  whether 
for  good  or  evil  —  in  a  play.  The  eyeballs 
of  a  just-imported  leopard,  that  we  saw  in  our 
youth,  dilating  and  glancing  with  a  green 
malignant  light,  shine  still  with  all  the  old 
fascination;  and  glow  in  memory  by  some 
occult  association,  as  we  write  of  Booth's 
lago.  He  chastened  Shakespeare  by  deliv- 
ering, as  in  one  continuous  line, 


90  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

"  It  is  a  common  thing  to  have  a  foolish  wife." 

He  gave 

"  Dangerous  conceits    .    . 
Burn  like  the  mines  of  sulphur," 

with  a  voice  like  a  writhing  inward  flame. 

Wherever  Shakespeare  raised  one  of  his 
characters  above  its  habitual  level,  by  plum- 
ing it  with  the  splendor  of  his  own  imagi- 
nation, Booth  instinctively  took  wing  with 
him ;  and  the  manner  in  which  he  gave 

"  Not  poppy  nor  mandragora 
Nor  all  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  world 
Shall  ever  medicine  thee  to  that  sweet  sleep 
Which  thou  ow'dst  yesterday," 

was,  as  if  a  boding  angel,  in  tones  of  pro- 
foundest  music,  banished  all  the  agents  of 
repose,  and  created  the  doom  he  pronounced. 
In  the  night  scene,  where  Roderigo  en- 
counters Cassio,  on  the  very  night  when  the 
deeper  tragedy  of  the  play  is  consummated, 
lago  appears  with  a  light  and  a  drawn  sword. 
The  light  shone  on  Booth's  pale  and  fiendish 
face,  as,  with  a  sword-stroke  into  Roderigo's 
wounded  body,  he  delivers  himself  of  this 
stroke  of  devilish  wit :  — 

"  Kill  men  i' the  dark!" 


1A  GO.  91 

It  will  be  remembered  that  he  had  instigated 
Roderigo  to  the  murder  of  Cassio. 

In  the  last  scene,  as  lago  stands  a  defeated 
culprit,  his  hideous  crimes  exposed,  Othello 
saying,  — 

"  If  that  thou  be'st  a  devil  I  cannot  kill  thee," 
runs    at    and    stabs    him.     Booth    replied, 
staunching   the    wound,  and   mastering  the 
anguish  of  it,   and   with   a   look   of  steady 
hatred  and  defiance, 

"  I  bleed,  sir,  but —  not  —  killed." 

As  if  he  would  say,  "  You  are  right,  you 
cannot  kill  me.     I  am  &  devil." 


OTHELLO. 

DURING  a  certain  week  in  the  autumn  of 
1847,  there  came  to  us  a  special  revelation  of 
the  scope  of  the  histrionic  art.  On  Tuesday, 
September  14th,  Mr.  Booth  enacted  Othello. 
On  Wednesday,  15th,  lago  —  that  lago  we 
have  just  briefly  noticed  —  and  on  Thursday, 
16th,  Othello  again.  The  entireness  of 
transition  in  so  short  a  span ;  the  complete- 
ness of  identification  in  characters  so  essen- 
tially diverse,  filled  us  with  a  wonder  that 
still  abides.  But  a  great  actor  is  the  only 
human  being  who  is  voluntarily  and  happily 
beside  himself,  with  power  of  complete  self- 
recovery,  and  readiness  for  a  fresh  transfor- 
mation. 

Booth's  lago  was  so  well  known  to  us ;  his 
figure  rose  so  surely  in  our  imagination  as  we 
read  the  play,  that  we  heard,  not  without 
some  misgiving,  the  announcement  of  Mr. 
Booth  as  Othello,  "  the  first  time  for  many 
years."  We  confess  to  a  fear,  lest,  in  his 
performance,  some  look,  or  trait,  or  tone  of 


OTHELLO.  93 

the  deep-revolving  subtle  villainy  of  his  more 
familiar  part  might  appear,  to  despoil  the 
frank  and  noble  presence  of  the  Moor.  But 
it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say,  that  the  two 
characters  did  not  lie  more  clearly  asunder 
in  the  mind  of  Shakespeare,  than  in  Mr. 
Booth's  representation. 

Othello  was  a  Christian  graft  upon  a  wild 
Arabian  stock.  He  was  a  Mauritanian 
prince.  The  Eastern  origin  of  his  race  ;  his 
birth  in  Africa  ;  his  military  life  ;  his  Venetian 
culture ;  all  had  part  in  building  up  a  charac- 
ter, compact  of  strength,  fervency,  simplicity, 
and  honor.  Accordingly,  Booth's  persona- 
tion was  marked,  especially  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  the  play,  by  an  oriental  largeness 
and  calm.  Even  when  his  frame  of  nature 
is  wrenched  from  its  fixed  place,  by  lago's 
preternatural  enginery,  there  is  a  continual 
recoil  and  reinstatement  of  the  Moor's  solid 
virtue  ;  so  that  he  never  loses  our  respect,  at 
the  same  time  that  he  moves  our  sympathies 
beyond  any  other  male  character  in  Shake- 
speare. We  might  sum  up  Mr.  Booth's 
characterization  in  one  word  —  magnanimity. 

In  this  mood  of  mind  he  enters  on  the 
scene,  lago  following.  If  the  reader  could 


94  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

imagine  Booth's  lago  played  against  his  own 
Othello,  how  would  the  illusion  we  hope  to 
create  in  him  be  heightened !  lago  tries  to 
incense  Othello  against  Roderigo,  the  Moor's 
soi-disant  rival.  Othello  answers  — 
"  'Tis  better  —  as  —  it  is." 

Booth  gave  this  with  a  gravity,  a  weighty 
distinctness  on  the  last  three  words,  which 
conveyed  a  reproof,  and  was  intended  to  dis- 
miss the  subject.  lago  returns  to  the  charge : 

"  Nay,  but  he  prated, 

And  spoke  such  scurvy  and  provoking  terms 
Against  your  honor  ; "  — 

a  home  thrust,  but  finding  it  without  effect, 
his  speech  veers  upon  Brabantio,  his  place 
and  power  for  injury.  Then  comes  from 
Othello  the  noble  reply,  beginning  — 

"  Let  him  do  his  spite. 


I  fetch  my  life  and  being 
From  men  of  royal  siege;  and  my  demerits 
May  speak  unbonneted  to  as  proud  a  fortune 
As  this  that  I  have  reached," 

given  with  peculiar  intonation,  and  rising  em- 
phasis, imparting  a  fine  accent  to  the  meaning, 
that  it  did  not  add  to  the  dignity  of  a  Moorish 
prince  to  become  the  son-in-law  of  a  Vene- 
tian senator. 


OTHELLO.  95 

"  For  know,  lago, 
But  that  I  love  the  gentle  Desdemona," 

with  wealth  of  tenderness,  and  sad,  as  all 
high  feeling  is,  and  in  tones  that  seemed  the 
vibration  of  his  "  dear  heart-strings."  In 
that  speech  Mr.  Booth  struck  the  key  note 
of  the  character. 

How  picturesque  and  effective  are  the 
night  scenes  of  this  great  play  !  The  whole 
of  the  First  Act,  with  its  large  variety  of 
place  and  persons,  and  the  whole  of  the 
Fifth,  with  much  of  the  Second  and  Fourth 
Acts,  pass  in  the  night.  Night  is  the  season 
for  peace  and  love;  It  is  the  house  of  grief. 
It  is  the  cloak  of  crime. 

Brabantio  (entering  with  followers, 
torches,  and  weapons)  exclaims  — 

"  Down  with  him,  thief  !  " 

(They  draw  on  both  sides.)  lago  strikes  in 
with  — 

"  You,  Roderigo,  come  sir,  I  am  for  you."  , 

Perhaps  he  intended  to  pick  off  that  gentle- 
man, whose  purse  he  had  already  drained, 
even  as  he  does  later  in  the  play.  Perhaps 
in  encountering  him  he  only  meant  to  pre- 
serve him,  in  order  to  pluck  him  cleaner. 


96  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

We  speculate  on  the  motives  and  conduct  of 
Shakespeare's  characters,  as  if  they  were 
living  persons.  And  with  reason  ;  for  they 
are  not  only  living,  but  immortal.  lago 
plainly  expects  a  fight.  He  has  no  sympathy 
with  that  romance  of  honor,  which  governs 
Othello's  conduct.  He  can  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  it.  But  so  disengaged  from  all  pur- 
pose or  permission  of  quarrel  is  the  Moor, 
that  he  playfully  and  nobly  says  — 

"  Keep  up  your  bright  swords,  for  the  dew  will  rust  them." 

Then  turning  to  Desdemona's  father,  who 
has  just  called  him  "  thie.f,"  he  adds,  in  a 
manner  of  mingled  reproof  and  deference  — 

"  Good  signior,  you  shall  more  command  with  years  — 
Than  with  your  weapon." 

But  into  the  utterance  of  the  last  line,  there 
crept  a  keen,  low-toned,  cool  disdain.  The 
old  father  insists  on  Othello's  arrest,  and 
heaps  gross  accusations  on  him.  Then  came 
from  Booth  — 

"  The  flash  and  outbreak  of  a  fiery  mind," 

in  the  words  — 

"  Hold  your  hands ! 
Both  you  of  my  inclining  and  the  rest; 
Were  it  my  cue  to  fight,  I  should  have  known  it 
Without  a  prompter  "  — 


OTHELLO.  97 

the   concluding  words   quietly  addressed   to 
the  disappointed  lago. 

Charles  Lamb  said  that  he  was  quite  un- 
able to  measure  the  value  of  Hamlet's  so- 
liloquy, "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  because  he 
had  heard  it  so  often  recited.  Othello's  ad- 
dress to  the  Senate  is  almost  equally  hack- 
neyed. But  Mr.  Booth  so  cleansed  it  from 
the  scurf  of  custom ;  gave  it  with  such  dig- 
nity, directness,  delicacy,  fervor,  that  we 
seemed  to  hear  it  then  for  the  first  time. 
To  genius  all  doors  fly  open.  He  took  us 
into  old  Brabantio's  house,  and  made  us  see 
the  very  progress  of  his  courtship ;  and  the 
gentle  lady,  the  house  affairs  dispatched,  sit- 
ting a  charmed  listener  to  his  recital. 

"  Her  father  loved  me  (gesture  of  dissent  from  the  father) ; 
Oft  invited  me : 

Still  questioned  me  the  story  of  my  life, 
From  year  to  year,  the  battles,  sieges,  fortunes, 
That  I  have  passed. 

I  ran  it  through,  even  from  my  boyish  days, 
To  the  very  moment  that  he  bade  me  tell  it." 

These  circumstances  were  proof  of  love,  in 
the  estimate  of  the  frank-minded  Moor.  In 
the  dramatic  truth  of  Booth's  delivery  we 
felt  the  presence  of  the  "insolent  foe,"  by 
whom  he  was  "  sold  to  slavery,"  and  the  joy 
7 


98  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

of  his  "  redemption  thence."  Desdemona 
listens  with  "  greedy  ear  "  — 

"  Which  I  observing, 
Took  once  a  pliant  hour,  and  found  good  means  " 

glancing  at  the  father  — 

"To  draw  from  her  a  prayer  of  earnest  heart, 
That  I  would  all  my  pilgrimage  dilate, 
Whereof  by  parcels  she  had  something  heard, 
But  not  intentively." 

In  these  words  and  in  the  following  lines, 
where  he  quotes  Desdemona,  we  seem  to 
hear  her  speaking  through  him,  with  all  her 
innocent  finesse,  and  full-hearted  tenderness. 
"  'Twas  pitiful,"  as  if  concluding  :  then  with 
fresh  access  of  feeling,  and  with  rising  in- 
flection, "'Twas — wondrous — pitiful."  The 
address  was  made  to  the  Senate,  and  not  to 
the  audience.  We  can  only  add,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Duke  — 

"  I  think  this  tale  would  win  my  daughter  too." 

The  reader  has  undoubtedly  remarked, 
that  in  making  the  comparison  of  excellence 
in  actors,  we  excluded  all  literatures  beside 
the  English,  and  all  nations  who  did  not 
speak  the  English  tongue.  And  simply  be- 
cause of  the  unquestioned  supremacy  of 
Shakespeare.  The  French  and  Italian  trans- 
lations, and  the  actors  who  perform  in  them, 


OTHELLO.  99 

may  be  passed  by  without  comment.  The 
Germans,  by  affinity  of  language  and  race, 
may  put  in  a  better  claim.  The  name  of 
Devrient,  has  a  vague  high  fame,  in  the  Ger- 
man Shakespeare,  as  well  as  in  the  drama  of 
his  native  land.  Travelled  scholars  have 
also,  for  many  years,  brought  back  report  of 
the  unmatched  excellence  of  Mr.  Bogumil 
Dawison,  as  a  representative  of  Shakespear- 
ean character ;  and  the  cultivated  audiences 
of  New  York  and  Boston  have  recently  en- 
joyed the  rare  pleasure  of  seeing  him  play 
Othello  in  German,  to  Mr.  Edwin  Booth's 
lago  in  English. 

We  watched  his  performance  with  eager 
interest.  It  was  full  of  beauties,  and  strik- 
ingly original  and  natural,  in  action  and  by- 
play. He  dismissed  Cassio  as  if  he  loved 
him.  He  lay  on  a  couch  in  his  own  chamber, 
as  if  no  one  were  looking  at  him.  He  hung 
over  his  dead  wife,  in  the  last  scene,  uttering 
cries  whose  simple  pathos  touched  the  heart. 
His  voice  is  sweet  and  flute-like,  but  of  little 
compass,  or  variety  of  tone.  His  facial  ex- 
pression was  intense  and  vivid,  though  with 
sameness  ;  and  his  gestures  were  indetermi- 
nate and  heaving.  Yet  he  made  one  exit,  in 


100  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

the  great  Third  Act,  in  which,  by  abrupt 
pauses,  and  repeated  looking  back,  and  by 
glances,  and  play  of  feature,  he  expressed 
the  contending  emotions  of  Othello's  mind, 
in  a  manner  that  Roscius  might  have  envied, 
and  which  aimed  well  at  the  height  of  Shake- 
speare. He  introduced  the  long  first  scene  of 
the  Fourth  Act,  always  omitted  on  the  Eng- 
lish and  American  stage ;  but  which  is  so 
necessary  to  that  continuity  and  accumulation 
of  evidence,  which  overbears  Othello's  mind, 
and  hurries  on  the  catastrophe  —  and  for  this 
we  thank  him  heartily.  He  carried  natural- 
ness to  an  excess.  His  affection  for  Desde- 
mona  was  very  manifest  —  perhaps  a  little 
fulsome.  It  lacked  dignity,  and  that  reti- 
cence which  belongs  to  calm,  firm  natures, 
whose  flame  of  love  is  contained,  intense, 
and  steady.  He  translated  the  character, 
as  well  as  the  language,  into  German. 

These  remarks  will  apply  to  his  expression, 
in  that  scene  we  have  reached,  in  our  pres- 
ent consideration  of  the  play  —  the  scene  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona  meeting  at  Cyprus. 
The  words  "  content,"  "  calm,"  "  comfort," 
and  "  content  "  again,  appear  in  the  Moor's 
first  speeches.  He  calls  her  his 


OTHELLO.  101 

joy."  So  chaste,  so  deep-hearted  is  his  love, 
that  he  feels  a  willingness  to  die,  —  an  ex- 
perience only  possible  to  the  most  serene 
and  imaginative  mood.  We  return  to  Mr. 
Booth. 

"  If  it  were  now  to  die 
'Twere  now  to  be  most  happy ;  for  I  fear 
My  soul  hath  her  content  so  absolute, 
That  not  another  comfort  like  to  this, 
Succeeds  in  unknown  fate." 

The  calm  intensity,  the  purified  and  exalted 
passion,  the  sad,  prophetic,  far-off  music  he 
infused  into  this  passage,  can  never  be  for- 
gotten. We  shall  recall  it,  once,  in  the 
course  of  this  analysis. 

On  that  scene  of  confusion  so  skillfully 
engineered  by  lago,  —  with  Cassio  drunk, 
Montano  wounded,  and  the  town  alarmed,  — 
Othello  appears,  roused  with  indignation. 
The  tropic  blood,  till  now  sleeping  in  his 
veins,  begins  to  stir.  He  dismissed  Cassio, 
not  as  if  he  loved  him  ;  or  rather  as  if,  loving 
him,  he  loved  discipline  and  honor  more. 

We  have  had  the  initial  touches  of  this 
man's  vast  capacity  for  imaginative  emotion. 
We  are  prepared  for  the  grand  Third  Act, 
exhibiting  the  second  distinct  phase  of  Othel- 
lo's nature,  yet  without  losing  his  noble  in- 


102  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

dividuality.  We  have  hitherto  seen  him  as 
the  Christian  soldier.  He  now  appears  as 
the  barbaric  prince.  Africa  supplants  Ven- 
ice. The  mighty  passions,  nourished  by  the 
sun,  where  he  was  born,  and  which  lay  slum- 
bering within,  imparting,  so  long  as  they 
were  kept  subdued,  a  lion-like  strength  to 
his  character,  are  here  set  loose,  and  lashed 
into  a  fearful  storm,  by  the  devil-agency  of 
lago. 

In  order  to  save  a  repetition  of  names, 
we  shall  speak,  for  the  time,  of  Othello  and 
Booth  as  one  person.  They  were  one,  to 
our  apprehension.  We  note  the  noble  con- 
fidence of  Othello  towards  Cassio,  whom  he 
sees  parting  from  his  wife.  "  I  do  believe 
'twas  he."  So  opposite  was  Othello  by  na- 
ture, to  the  selfish  and  self-generated  passion 
of  jealousy,  that  it  required  the  repeated 
subtle  probe  of  lago's  wit  before  even  Cassio 
could  be  brought  under  suspicion. 

Othello.    "  0  yes,  and  went  between  us  very  oft,"  — 

given  with  a  hearty  and  happy  remembrance 
of  Cassio's  friendship.  And  not  till  lago 
has,  by  covert  and  halting  insinuations, 
brought  Othello,  who  lived  by  truth,  to  the 
agonized  question,  "  What  dost  thou  mean  ?  " 


OTHELLO.  103 

does  he  dare  to  implicate  Desdemona.  He 
does  it  then  only  by  suggestion,  and  in  the 
general  words  "and  woman,"  pushing  that 
card  like  an  ingenious  juggler.  Othello  takes 
it,  and  finds  it  inscribed  with  characters  of 
dismay.  The  fiend  follows  up  his  advantage, 
and  wrings  from  the  heart  of  his  victim,  in 
the  words  "  O,  misery  !  "  tones  that  for  ex- 
pression of  inward  desolation  we  have  never 
heard  equaled. 

Yet  in  the  next  long  speech,  we  find  his 
shaken  manhood  partially  recovering  its 
poise  :  — 

"  Thinkest  thou  I'd  make  a  life  of  jealousy?  " 

The  blended  modesty  and  self-respect  of  man- 
ner, in  the  phrase  — 

"  Nor  from  mine  own  weak  merits  will  I  draw 
The  smallest  fear  or  doubt  of  her  revolt: 
For  she  had  eyes —  and  chose  me." 

The  word  "  revolt  "  was  one  of  those  strokes 
of  genius  in  tone,  of  which  he  furnished  such 
numberless  examples.  It  came  with  access 
of  emphasis,  as  if  he  felt,  for  an  instant,  how 
dreadful  a  thing  her  revolt  might  be,  then 
dismisses  the  thought  at  once.  It  was  that 
subtle  touch  of  lago's,  in  the  phrase  — 
"  She  did  deceive  her  father  marrying  you," 


104  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

put  forth  as  a  "basis  for  those  "  proofs  " 
Othello  calls  for,  which  took  the  ground 
from  under  him. 

logo.    "  I  see,  this  hath  a  little  dashed  your  spirits." 
Othello.    "  Not  a  jot.    Not  a  jot," 

in  a  tone,  playing  on  the  surface  of  a  mind, 
filled  with  suppressed  agony.  And  again, 
soon  after :  — 

"  No,  not  much  —  moved," 

till  his  o'erfraught  heart  burst  into  the  words  : 
"  I  do  not  think  but  Desdemona's  honest !  " 

*'  Fear  not  my  government,"  meaning,  of 
course,  my  self-control,  and  given  with  a  ges- 
ture strangely  original  and  fine  —  the  fore- 
finger of  the  lifted  hand  pointed  vertically  to 
the  top  of  the  head. 

"  If  I  do  prove  her  haggard,  etc.," 

in  a  voice  that  matched  the  any  sweep  of  the 
imagery ;  the  words,  "  to  prey  at  fortune," 
accompanied  by  a  darting  and  dispersed  ges- 
ture. 

"  Desdemona  comes : 

If  she  be  false,  0,  then  heaven  mocks  itself! 
I'll  not  believe  it." 

The  sight  of  his  wife  dispels  suspicion,  as 
daybreak  a  hideous  dream.  But  the  weari- 
ness remains. 


OTHELLO.  105 

"  Your  napkin  is  too  little." 

The  handkerchief  drops.  He  goes  with 
Desdemona  to  the  dinner,  to  which  he  has 
invited  the  "  generous  islanders."  The  scene 
is  occupied  by  Emilia  in  finding  the  fatal  nap- 
kin, and  lago,  in  snatching  it,  and  plotting 
mischief  with  it. 
Othello  has  said  — 

"  'Tis  not  to  make  me  jealous, 
To  say  my  wife  is  fair,  feeds  well,  loves  company, 
Is  free  of  speech ;  sings,  plays,  and  dances  well ; 
Where  virtue  is  these  are  more  virtuous." 

But  already,  to  Othello's  mind,  lago  has 
begun  to  turn  that  virtue  into  pitch.  And 
we  may  imagine  the  guileless  hospitality  of 
the  gentle  lady  to  her  guests,  maddening 
her  husband,  so  that  he  abruptly  leaves  them, 
and  reenters  on  the  scene  to  lago,  with  the 
exclamation  — 

"  Ha,  ha!  false  to  me?  to  me?  " 

He  seeks  a  wretched  refuge  in  the  surmise 
of  ignorance :  — 

"  I  had  been  —  happy,  if  the  general  camp, 
Pioneers  and  all  "  — 

the  voice  of  desperation  as  he  heaps  up  the 
hyperbole ! 

"  Had  tasted  her  sweet  body, 
So  I  had  nothing  known." 


106  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

But  the  self-wounding,  scorpion  mood  is  of 
brief  duration.  With  entire  change  of  man- 
ner, in  a  style  large,  oriental,  he  came  down 
the  stage ;  and  looking  towards  the  listeners, 
but  never  at  them,  he  poured  the  full  volume 
of  his  voice,  not  loud  but  deep,  into  the  "  fare- 
well." The  melancholy  grandeur  of  the  lines, 
however  uttered,  finds  its  way  into  every 
soul.  In  the  mere  word  "  farewell,"  his 
great  heart  seemed  to  burst  as  in  one  vast 
continuing  sigh.  The  phrase,  "  the  tranquil 
mind,"  immediately  succeeding,  came  in 
clear  brain-tones,  with  a  certain  involved 
suggestiveness  of  meaning  almost  impossible 
to  define,  but  as  if  the  tranquil  mind  had 
flown.  The  whole  passage,  with  its  succes- 
sive images  of  glorious  war,  filing  and  dis- 
appearing before  his  mind's  eye,  employed 
some  of  the  grandest  elements  of  voice,  sub- 
dued to  retrospective  and  mournful  cadences. 

"  Othello's  occupation's  gone." 

And  he  stood  with  a  look  in  his  large  blue 
eyes  —  the  bronzed  face  lending  them  a 
strange  sadness  —  as  if  all  happiness  had 
gone  after.  Kean's  manner,  in  this  scene, 
was  very  diiferent.  At  the  close  of  the 
"farewell,"  he  raised  both  hands,  clasped 


OTHELLO.  107 

them,  and  so  brought  them  down  upon  his 
head,  with  a  most  effective  gesture  of  des- 
pair. But  the  action  seems  to  us  like  trans- 
formino-  Othello  into  Edmund  Kean. 

O 

It  is  the  setting  of  the  "farewell,"  the 
grand  pause  in  the  passion  of  the  play  —  like 
the  ominous  pause  of  the  maelstrom,  at  the 
turning  of  the  tide  —  which  gives  it  such 
sway  over  the  mind.  The  passion  returns 
with  redoubled  power,  to  the  evident  sur- 
prise, and  almost  to  the  discomfiture  of  lago, 
whom  Othello  seizes  by  the  throat,  demand- 
ing ocular  proof  of  his  wife's  infidelity.  The 
villain  can  make  only  short  protests.  Words 
can  but  faintly  indicate  the  terrific  and  cum- 
ulative energy  of  the  passage,  beginning  — 

"  If  thou  dost  slander  her,  and  torture  me, 
Never  pray  more; " 

marked  as  it  was  equally  by  intellectual 
clearness,  heat  of  passion,  and  imaginatire 
realization.  The  fit  passes,  and  leaves  him 
in  a  whirl  of  doubt ;  but  of  doubt  pressing 
towards  resolution,  demanding  proof,  and 
lago  is  ready  with  his  master  stroke,  the  — 

"  Strong  circumstance 
Which  leads  directly  to  the  door  of  truth  "  — 

the  handkerchief. 


108  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

"  Such  a  handkerchief 
(I  am  sure  it  was  your  wife's)  did  I  to-day 
See  Cassio  wipe  his  beard  with." 

When  Mr.  Booth  played  lago,  he  did,  in 
saying  this,  while  pretending  to  lay  his  hand 
on  his  heart,  to  enforce  asseveration,  tuck 
away  more  securely  in  his  doubtlet,  the  very 
handkerchief,  which,  with  fiendish  purpose, 
he  intended  Cassio  should  wipe  his  beard 
with. 

Now  appears  the  third  distinct  phase  of 
Othello's  nature,  the  oriental.  The  history 
of  that  handkerchief  arises  in  the  mind  of 
the  Moor,  and  with  it  the  dim  and  dominat- 
ing superstitions  of  the  East,  the  birthplace 
of  his  race.  He  exclaims  — 

"  Now  do  I  see  'tis  true !  " 

The  passion  of  the  Third  Act  is  so  intense 
and  varying,  the  drain  on  the  physical  power 
of  the  actor,  especially  his  voice,  is  so  enor- 
mous that  eight  lines,  beginning  — 

"  Like  to  the  Pontic  sea," 

have  been  cut  out  of  the  representation. 
Edmund  Kean  never  gave  them.  Mr.  Booth 
omitted  them  on  his  first  performance  ;  but 
at  the  urgent  solicitation  of  personal  friends, 


OTHELLO.  109 

restored  them  on  the  second.  Their  utter- 
ance overpaid  expectation.  They  came  with 
headlong  speed  and  vast  momentum.  The 
images  and  names  of  those  eastern  seas,  he 
endowed  with  a  peculiar  freshness  and  sur- 
prise. "  Hellespont "  sounded  like  a  torrent 
dashed  on  rocks. 

"  Till  that  a  capable  and  wide  revenge 
Swallow  them  up," 

gave  the  sound,  and  figured  the  very  action 
of  engulfing  waves. 

The  waters  of  the  river  Rhone,  as  they 
leave  the  lake  of  Geneva,  are  singularly  pure. 
The  turbid  Arve  empties  into  the  Rhone  ; 
and,  side  by  side,  without  mingling,  flow  the 
two  distinct  currents  in  the  same  channel. 
Even  so  was  it  with  Othello's  mind.  The 
current  of  his  pure  and  inextinguishable  love, 
runs  side  by  side,  without  mingling,  with  the 
flow  of  foul  and  bloody  thoughts  poured  into 
his  heart  by  lago.  He  blows  his  love  to 
heaven  in  one  pathetic  breath.  He  invokes 
his  love  to  yield  up  its  crown  and  hearted 
throne  to  tyrannous  hate.  His  bosom  swells 
with  its  fraught  of  "  aspic's  tongues."  He 
passes  from  the  scene,  in  order  to  provide  — 

"  Some  swift  means  of  death, 
For  the  fair  devil." 


110  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

But  when  he  comes,  in  the  very  next 
scene,  into  the  angel  presence  of  his  wife,  all 
is  changed.  He  takes  Desdemona's  hand 
with  a  grave  tenderness.  His  paternal,  mon- 
itory tones,  ring  clear  and  sad  in  our  memory. 

"  This  hand  is  moist,  my  lady." 

Desdemona,    "  It  yet  has  felt  no  age,  nor  known  no  sorrow." 
Othello.    "  This  argues  fruitfulness,  and  liberal  heart: 

Hot,  hot,  and  moist.     This  hand  of  yours  requires 

A  sequester  from  liberty,  fasting  and  prayer." 

This  line  and  the  following,  remind  one  of 
the  Hebrew  poetry,  which  consisted  of  a 
varied  repetition  of  the  thought,  in  mated 
lines,  but  without  rhyme.  He  goes  on  — 

"  Much  castigation,  exercise  devout; " 

and  he  held  up  the  innocent  hand  between 
his  two,  in  momentary  but  fervent  attitude 
of  prayer.  Then,  still  holding  her  hand  in 
one  of  his,  and  pointing  with  the  other,  and 
looking  keenly  but  without  unkindness  into 
her  palm,  he  adds,  with  heightening  and  ring- 
ing accent : — 

"  For  here  's  a  young  and  sweating  devil  here, 
That  commonly  rebels." 

These  three  words  in  changed  tone,  and  with 
the  voice  sustained  at  the  close,  and  given  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  attentive  listener 
supplemented  the  meaning  —  "  and  I  fear 


OTHELLO.  Ill 

must  do  so  in  your  case."  So,  at  the  first 
performance.  On  the  second,  a  fine  varia- 
tion — 

"  For  here  'a  a  young  and  sweating  — devil  here," 

with  the  same  searching  intensity ;  then  a 
kindly  doubt  seems  to  rise  in  his  mind,  and 
he  gives  her  the  benefit  of  it  in  saying  — 

"  That  commonly  (slight  pause)  rebels." 

The  history  of  the  handkerchief,  contain- 
ing the  only  touch  of  the  supernatural  in  this 
domestic  tragedy,  was  told  with  a  fine  orien- 
tal fanaticism. 

* 

"  She  was  a  charmer,  and  could  almost  read 
The  thoughts  of  people." 

Eye,  gesture,  voice,  conspired  to  give  the 
very  impress  of  divination. 

"  And  bid  me,  when  my  fate  would  have  me  wive." 

His  look  reached  upward,  as  a  Chaldean's 
might,  towards  those  stars  which  influence 
human  destiny. 

"  Make  it  a  darling,  like  your  precious  eye." 

The  priceless,  unreplaceable  preciousness  of 
the  handkerchief,  was  condensed  in  the  word 
"darling,"  with  a  keen,  fond,  defended  in- 
tonation. 


112  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

Detdemona.    "  Is  it  possible  ?  " 

Othello  (irutantly).    "  'Tig  true.    There 's  magic  in  the 

web  of  it. 

A  sibyl,  that  had  numbered  in  the  world 
The  sun  to  make  two  hundred  compasses, 
In  her  prophetic  fury  —  sewed  the  work." 

The  whole  passage  came  with  a  frenzy  of 
spontaneous  narration ;  and  with  gesture  full 
of  subtle  intimations,  not  mimicries,  —  for 
example,  turning,  swift  as  a  swallow  in  flight, 
from  the  inspiration  of  the  sibyl,  to  the  sew- 
ing of  the  work. 

"  Fetch  it;  let  me  see  it," 

as  with  a  desperate  certainty  that  it  could 
not  be  found  or  brought. 

It  argued  a  certain  badness  of  nature  in 
Emilia,  for  which  only  her  wakened  con- 
science and  her  willing  death  at  the  end  of 
the  play  might  fully  atone,  that  she  could 
bear  to  stand  by  and  hear  this  relation,  wit- 
ness her  mistress's  astonished  grief,  and 
Othello's  angry  exit,  and  yet  withhold  the 
little  word  that  would  have  set  all  right. 

The  omission  of  the  first  scene  of  the 
Fourth  Act,  was  a  serious  fault.  It  should 
always  be  presented.  In  it  the  simulated 
proofs  thicken.  The  wild  alternation  of  love 
with  jealous  madness  in  Othello  —  that  pa- 


OTHELLO.  113 

renthesis  of  contemplation,  where  he  refers 
his  "  shadowing  passion  "  to  "  instructed  na- 
ture," and  not  to  lago's  report ;  and  so 
makes  the  very  emotion  he  suffers  under 
an  occult  proof  of  his  wife's  guilt  —  the 
bloody  thoughts  which  clot  into  single,  ter- 
rible words  —  his  trance  —  are  all  of  the 
closest  texture  of  dramatic  situation  and  ex- 
pression, and  can  employ  the  very  highest 
genius  of  any  actor.  Moreover,  that  scene 
prepares  the  auditor  for  the  following,  and 
accounts  for  Othello's  direct  and  cruel  ac- 
cusations. The  turbid  current  has  mingled 
with  the  pure. 

We  come  now  to  the  last  scene  —  the 
bed-chamber.  It  was  full  of  fate.  Mr. 
Booth  entered  with  an  eastern  lamp  lighted 
in  one  hand,  and  a  drawn  scimitar  in  the 
other.  The  oriental  subjective  mood  had 
obtained  full  possession  of  him.  The  sup- 
posed "  proofs  "  had  sunk  into  his  mind,  and 
resolved  themselves  into  a  fearful  unity  of 
thought  and  purpose.  This  is  fully  shown 
in  a  later  speech  : 

"  For  to  deny  each  article — with  oath, 

Cannot  remove  or  choke  the  strong  conception 
That  I  do  groan  withal.    Thou  art  to  die." 


114  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

And  again :  "  Being  done  (i.  e.,  resolved  on) 
there  is  no  pause  "  (in  deed). 

The  expression  of  contained  energy  in  his 
movement,  the  large,  low-toned,  vibrant  ru- 
mination of  his  voice,  sounding  like  thought 
overheard,  filled  the  scene  with  an  atmos- 
phere at  once  oppressive  and  fascinating. 

"  I  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  heat," 

as  if  the  adjective  had  just  occurred  to  him ; 
and  accompanied  by  a  wandering  and  ques- 
tioning gesture. 

We  feel  a  certain  shame  in  picking  out 
items  for  comment  from  scenes  of  profound 
or  exalted  passion,  like  this  one  we  have  in 
view ;  and  especially  as  the  excellence  of 
Mr.  Booth's  acting  could  not  be  measured 
by  the  number  of  good  points  he  made,  but 
by  the  entireness  of  identification.  Yet  we 
find  no  help  for  it.  Observe  the  eastern 
imagery  employed  throughout  this  scene. 
The  "  chaste  stars ;  "  the  "  error  of  the 
moon  ;  "  "  the  Arabian  trees  ;  "  "  the  base 
Indian  ; "  the  "  huge  eclipse  of  sun  and 
moon ;  "  and  that  big  imagination  of  the 
world  as  — 

"  One  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite." 


OTHELLO.  115 

The  deed  is  done.     Emilia  enters  : 

"  0  good  my  lord,  yonder  's  foul  murder  done." 
Othello.     "What,  now?" 
Emilia.    "  But  now,  my  lord." 
Othello.    "  It  is  the  very  error  of  the  moon ; 

She  comes  more  new  the  earth  than  she  was  wont, 

And  makes  men  mad." 

His  gesture  seemed  to  figure  the  faith  of  the 
Chaldean,  and  to  bring  the  moon  more  near. 
"Roderigo  killed!  "  (with  wonder).  "  And 
Cassio  killed !  "  (glutting  the  words  in  his 
throat).  * 

"  0, 1  were  damned  beneath  all  depth  in  hell, 
But  that  I  did  proceed,  upon  just  grounds, 
To  this  extremity." 

He  uttered  that  first  tremendous  line  with 
burning  intensity.  Milton  has  borrowed  the 
thought,  and  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  Satan  : 

"  And  in  the  lowest  depth,  a  lower  deep,"  etc. 
After  the  truth  is  out,  and  under  the  spell 
of  his  grand  presence,  and  in  the  tragic  con- 
tinuity of  the  scene,  his  speech  over  his  dead 
wife  seemed  the  ultimate  reach  of  blended 
grief  and  love  and  wild  remorseful  passion 
of  which  the  human  voice  is  capable. 

"  Wash  me  in  steep-down  gulfs  of  liquid  fire!  " 

Othello  has  wounded  lago,  but  not  killed 
him.  He  says  :  — 


116  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

"  I  am  not  sorry  neither:  I'd  have  thee  —  live ; 
For  in  my  sense,  'tis  happiness  to  die." 

We  now  recall  that  passage  in  the  Second 
Act  — 

"  If  it  were  now  to  die 
'Twere  now  to  be  most  happy." 

Then,  the  expression  came  from  the  absolute 
fullness  of  his  joy ;  now,  the  same  word  tells 
of  the  last  bitterness  of  his  grief  and  self-con- 
demnation : 

"  The  wheel  has  come  full  circle." 

From  this  moment  his  own  death  is  assured. 
At  the  summons,  "  Bring  him  away,"  and 
as  he  is  beginning  his  final  speech  — 

"  Soft  you;  a  word  or  two  before  you  go," 

he  takes  a  silken  robe,  and  carelessly  throws 
it  over  his  shoulder ;  then  reaches  for  his  tur- 
ban, possessing  himself  of  a  dagger  he  had 
concealed  therein. 

"  Then  must  you  speak 
Of  one  that  loved,  not  wisely,  but  too  well, 

Of  one  whose  hand, 

Like  the  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe." 

He  uttered  the  word  "  pearl "  as  if  it  were 
indeed  "  the  immediate  jewel  of  his  soul," 
his  wife,  with  a  lingering  fullness  and  tender- 
ness of  emphasis,  and  with  a  gesture  as  if,  in 


OTEELLO.  117 

the  act  of  throwing  it  away,  he  cast  his  own 
life  from  him. 

If  .the  excellence  of  a  performance  may  be 
judged  by  its  effect  on  the  audience,  this  one 
had  transcendant  merit.  Let  the  hushed 
attention  of  a  company  unusually  numerous 
and  refined  —  let  the  silent  tears  of  strong; 

O 

men,  carried  by  the  imaginative  stress  of  the 
scene  beyond  the  reaches  of  their  critical 
culture  —  bear  witness.  For  ourself,  we 
went  no  more  to  the  play  during  that  engage- 
ment ;  but  walked  about  as  in  a  voluntary 
dream,  not  caring  to  dispel  by  attendance  on 
even  his  other  performances,  the  pathetic 
illusion  he  had  created. 


MACBETH. 

AMONG  those  undefined  influences  which 
stream  from  the  greater  dramas  of  Shake- 
speare may  be  numbered  the  climate  of  the 
play;  and  this,  while  dften  eluding  the  ob- 
servation, tells  surely  upon  the  feeling  of  the 
reader.  From  tropical  heat,  we  pass  to  the 
chill  mists  of  Scotland.  From  the  alternate 
languor  and  fierceness  of  passion  —  from  im- 
agination which  rides  upon  the  current  of  the 
blood,  and  revels  in  gorgeous  color  and  in 
rich  and  sensuous  forms,  we  pass  to  that 
higher  imagination,  which  allies  itself  to  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  nature  ;  in  a  word, 
from  the  atmosphere  of  Othello  to  the  at- 
mosphere of  Macbeth. 

The  ductile  flame  of  Mr.  Booth's  histrionic 
genius  passed  into  this  northern  form  with 
even  greater  readiness  and  radiance  than  into 
Othello.  The  supernatural  element  in  Mac- 
beth is  more  pervading  and  various  in  its 
working  than  in  Hamlet.  The  character  is 
more  closely  knit ;  the  action  more  peremp- 


MACBETH.  119 

tory  and  progressive.  In  his  ambition,  and 
in  the  ways  of  satisfying  it,  there  are  points 
of  likeness  to  Richard.  But  Richard  moved 
toward  his  design  "  without  remorse  or 
dread,"  while  Macbeth  is  a  victim  to  both 
these  conditions  ;  not  from  a  lack  of  courage, 
but  by  virtue  of  a  morbid  excess  of  imagina- 
tion, which  projects  his  thoughts  into  objects. 
So  dominant  is  this  quality,  that  the  weird 
sisters  themselves  seem  like  the  outward 
shapes  of  his  guilty  purposes.  They  appear 
first  upon  the  scene,  then  vanish,  then  reap- 
pear, as  if  they  were  the  influences  of  his 
mind  as  well  as  the  heralds  of  his  approach. 
Mr.  Booth  filled  this  part.  We  had  seen 
gracious  performances,  and  heard  musical 
readings  of  the  text  by  other  actors.  They 
reported  the  character.  Booth  was  possessed 
by  it.  A  captain  in  the  service  of  his  king, 
and  returning  from  successful  fight,  in  com- 
pany with  Banquo,  he  is  met  upon  a  blasted 
heath  by  the  three  witches.  The  preternat- 
ural grandeur,  and  significant  brevity,  of 
their  greeting,  are  usually  lost  upon  the  stage. 
And  this,  we  contend,  is  owing  quite  as  much 
to  the  incapacity  of  imagination  on  the  part 
of  the  performer  of  Macbeth,  as  to  the  fan- 


120  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

tastical,  half-comic  aspect  of  the  three  old 
women.  While  they  were  speaking,  Mr. 
Booth  betrayed  his  strong  inward  agitation  5 
and  when  they  vanished  (that  is,  clattered 
off  the  stage),  he  looked  at  them,  then  into 
the  air,  with  a  quick  and  wonder-struck  tran- 
sition, which  volatilized  their  substance,  and 
abolished  their  defect. 

We  must  illustrate  this  scene  by  a  com- 
parison. 

Banquo,    "  The  earth  hath  bubbles,  as  the  water  has, 
And  these  are  of  them.   Whither  are  they  vanished?  " 

Macbeth.    "  Into  the  air ;  and  what  seemed  corporal  melted 
AB  breath  into  the  wind." 

Mr.  Vandenhoff,  the  elder,  a  gentleman 
whose  readings  from  Shakespeare  and  other 
poets  delighted  large  audiences  in  this  coun- 
try some  twenty  years  since,  had  a  voice  sin- 
gularly sweet  and  sonorous.  We  saw  him 
act  Macbeth,  or  rather  heard  him  read  the 
part ;  for  his  action  was  always  secondary. 
His  delivery  of  the  passage  quoted,  was  a 
marvel  of  descriptive  intonation.  He  gave 
body  and  form  to  the  impalpable  air.  You 
could  almost  see  his  breath  in  it.  But  he  did 
not  give  the  vanishing.  Booth  did.  With 
a  sudden  upward  look,  and  with  a  sudden 


MACBETH.  121 

springing  tone,  not  musical,  but  like  the  whiz 
of  a  shaft  from  a  cross-bow,  he  gave  "  into 
the  air."  Could  he  dally  with  the  image  ? 
No.  Voice,  look,  action,  conveyed  the  instant 
thought,  the  vanishing.  And  the  conclusion 
of  the  sentence  came  in  the  same  style : 

"  And  what  seemed  corporal  "  (looking  at  his  own  body), 
"  Melted  as  bi-eath  into  the  wind"  (short  i), 

with  a  succession  of  emphasis,  swift,  and  filled 
with  wonder.  To  assign  the  method  of  vari- 
ous actors,  we  might  say  :  Vandenhoff  played 
the  imagery  ;  Macready,  the  analysis  ;  Kean, 
the  passion  of  the  scene  ;  Booth,  the  charac- 
ter, which  not  only  includes  the  other  methods, 
but  supplies  an  element  wanting  in  them. 
The  speech  beginning  — 

"  Two  truths  are  told," 

drew  upon  that  well-spring  of  imaginative  ex- 
pression, which  lay  deep  in  Booth's  nature, 
and  which  Macbeth  gave  scope  for,  in  a  more 
condensed  and  terrific  way,  than  any  other 
character.  The  effect  of  the  "  supernatural 
soliciting  "  was  to  kindle  this  quality  into  its 
highest  life.  No  voice  that  we  have  ever 
heard  or  read  of,  could  convey  like  his,  the 
unbodied  beauty  or  terror  of  supernatural 


122  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

emotions.  The  music  of  the  "  imperial 
theme  "  was  in  his  ears.  He  saw  the  throne 
in  vision,  but  between  him  and  it  were  dark- 
ness, fearful  guilt,  and  "  horrible  imaginings." 

"My  thought,  whose  murder  —  yet — is  but  fantastical  (with 
tone  and  gesture  that  figured  a  hovering  and  vanishing 
shape), 

Shakes  so  my  single  state  of  man  (with  vibrant  intensity), 
that  function 

Is  smothered  in  surmise,  and  nothing  is 

But  what  is  not." 

This  phrase  was  uttered  in  one  continuous 
tone  of  involved  resonance,  and  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  make  the  listener  feel  that  the 
thronging  shapes  of  Macbeth's  roused  and 
guilty  imagination  had  displaced  the  world  of 
objective  realities. 

In  that  terrific  invocation  by  Lady  Macbeth 
to  the  — 

"  Spirits 
That  tend  on  mortal  thoughts," 

she  says, 

"  Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse ; 
That  no  compunctious  visitings  of  nature 
Shake  my  fell  purpose,  nor  keep  peace  ( ? )  between 
The  effect  and  it." 

All  the  editions,  including  Hudson's,  which 
for  the  profound  value  of  its  commentary,  is, 
in  our  judgment,  by  far  the  best  —  preserve 
this  reading.  But  it  would  seem  that  Shake- 


MACBETH.  123 

speare  wrote  "  pace,"  not  "  peace."  He 
personifies  "  nature,"  whose  "  visitings  "  are 
imagined  to  "  keep  pace"  like  a  sentinel  on 
guard,  between  the  "  effect,"  the  murder, 
and  "  it,"  the  fell  purpose  ;  sundering  them, 
the  very  thing  Lady  Macbeth  deprecated. 

She    welcomes    her     returning     husband 
with  — 

"  Great  Glamis,  worthy  Cawdor ! 
Greater  than  both  by  the  all-hail  hereafter!  " 

But  his  mind  is  bewildered,  and  his  will 
weakened,  by  images  of  terror  his  ambition 
has  conjured  up.  His  uncertain  and  post- 
poning mood,  found  fit  interpretation  in  the 
manner  of  Mr.  Booth's  delivery  of  the  few 
words  that  conclude  this  scene  ;  and  in  the 
soliloquy,  beginning  — 

"  If  'twere  done  when  'tis  done," 

that  mood  found  full  utterance.  Note  the 
crowd  and  jostle  of  inconsequent  thoughts,  in 
words  that  defy  punctuation.  His  mind  flies 
at  a  tangent,  from  the  need  of  despatch  in 
the  horrid  deed  he  contemplates,  to  the  hope 
of  success  ;  then  to  fears  of  the  life  to  come, 
followed  by  fears  of  retribution  in  the  life 
that  now  is.  Mr.  Booth  did  not  play  the 
trumpet  stop  of  his  voice,  in  the  phrase  — 
"  Will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet- tongued," 


124  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

but  gave  us  rather  to  feel  the  gracious  nature 
of  Duncan,  and  — 

"  The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking  off." 

But  at  length,  through  the  agency  of  his 
wife,  he  is  resolved,  and  strained  up  to  the 
purpose  of  regicide.  In  the  dark  chamber 
from  which  he  goes  to  kill  the  king,  appears 
before  him,  the  dagger  of  the  mind.  The 
pause,  the  look,  the  evasion  of  the  object, 
which  still  haunted  his  vision,  and  would  not 
pass,  as  expressed  by  Booth,  bettered  nature. 
At  length  came  the  words  — 

"  1$  this  a  dagger  that  I  see  before  me," 

low-toned,  scarce  audible,  with  a  prolonged 
emphasis  on  the  first  word,  and  in  that  man- 
ner as  if  thinking  aloud  without  auditors, 
which  marked  all  his  soliloquies.  The  whole 
speech  was  given  in  volumed  whispers.  It 
was  filled  with  fearful  shadows.  It  made  one 
hold  his  breath  in  dreadful  expectation,  as  the 
actor  passed  silently  — 

"  With  Tarquin's  ravishing  strides," 

towards  the  king's  chamber. 

What  an  awful  grandeur  is  in  this  play ; 
with  its  dense  thought,  rapid  action,  sub- 
stantive imagination,  and  mystery  of  iniq- 


MACBETH.  125 

uity  !  Even  Lady  Macbeth,  ambitious  realist 
as  she  was,  sometimes  thinks  in  images ;  as 
when,  in  the  appalling  scene  now  opening, 
and  which  we  are  disposed  to  describe  by 
indirection,  she  speaks  of  the  "  surfeited 
grooms." 

"  I  have  drugged  their  possets 
That  Death  and  Nature  do  contend  about  them, 
Whether  they  live  or  die." 

In  the  progress  of  the  scene,  her  cruel  hard- 
ness returns,  and  stands  out  strong  against 
the  overwhelming  imaginative  remorse  of 
her  husband.  He  not  only  "  peoples  the 
void  air  with  his  own  phantoms,"  but  fills  it 
with  strange  voices. 

"  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry, '  Sleep  no  more ! 
Macbeth  does  murder  sleep ;  the  innocent  sleep, 


Balm  of  hurt  minds.'  " 

What  wealth  of  meaning  in  these  words ! 
And  what  assuaging  fullness  of  comfort, 
Booth  infused  into  that  little  word,  "  balm  !  " 
"  Hurt  minds,"  given  in  anguished  brain- 
tones. 

Goethe  pregnantly  said,  "  The  power  of 
art  lies,  not  in  reporting,  but  in  conveying 
your  impressions."  We  invoke  the  aid  of 
that  power,  in  our  endeavor  to  convey  the 


126  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

actor's  manner,  in  the  culminating  speech 
of  this  scene.  Lady  Macbeth  has  gone  to 
gild  the  faces  of  the  grooms  with  Duncan's 
blood.  Left  alone,  Macbeth  hears  a  knock- 
ing at  the  gate. 

"  Whence  is  that  knocking? 
How  is't  with  me,  when  every  noise  appals  me '? 
What  hands  are  here  ?    Ha !  they  pluck  out  mine  eyes ! 
Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand?  " 

Looking  on  his  hands  with  starting  eyes, 
and  a  knotted  horror  in  his  features ;  and 
wiping  one  hand  with  the  other  from  him, 
with  intensest  loathing.  The  words  came, 
like  the  weary  dash  on  reef  rocks,  and  as 
over  sunken  wrecks  and  drowned  men,  of 
the  despairing  sea. 

"  No :  this  my  hand  will  rather 
The  multitudinous  seas  incarnardine, 
Making  the  green —  one  red." 

He  launched  the  mysterious  power  of  his 
voice,  like  the  sudden  rising  of  a  mighty 
wind  from  some  unknown  source,  over  those 
"  multitudinous  seas,"  and  they  swelled  and 
congregated  dim  and  vast  before  the  eye  of 
the  mind.  Then  came  the  amazing  word, 
"  incarnardine,"  each  syllable  ringing  like 
the  stroke  of  a  sword,  and,  as  it  were,  "  mak- 


MACBETH.  127 

ing  the  green  —  one  red."  The  whole  pas- 
sage was  of  unparalleled  grandeur ;  and  in 
tone,  look,  action,  conveyed  the  impression 
of  an  infinite  and  unavailing  remorse. 

During  the  alarm  at  the  discovery  of  the 
murder  of  the  king,  Macbeth  goes  to  Dun- 
can's chamber  and  returns,  saying  — 

"  Had  I  but  died  an  hoar  before  this  chance 
I  had  lived  a  blessed  time,"  etc. 

While  delivering  this  speech,  and  the  follow- 
ing one,  wherein  he  justifies  himself  for  the 
added  murder  of  the  grooms,  an  intelligent 
reporter  for  the  press  happened  to  enter  the 
theatre.  "  That 's  not  good !  "  he  exclaimed. 
"  What 's  the  matter  with  Booth  to-night  ?  " 
Nothing  was  the  matter,  except  that  the 
actor  had  reached  the  height  of  the  histri- 
onic art,  and  was  speaking  Macbeth's  false 
sentiments  with  pretended  feeling.  He  de- 
livered the  forced  imagery,  in  the  affected 
manner  of  a  hired  mourner,  hired  by  "  the 
common  enemy  of  man,"  and  paid  —  a 
crown. 

Hazlitt  says  of  Kean's  Macbeth,  that  "  he 
was  deficient  in  the  poetry  of  the  character;" 
and  that  "  he  did  not  look  like  a  man  who 
had  encountered  the  Weird  Sisters."  How 


128  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

then,  we  may  ask,  could  he  play  the  part  at 
all?  For,  unless  we  are  made  to  feel  that 
the  actor  is  possessed  by  visions  of  the  mind, 
startled  by  voices  in.  the  air,  waylaid,  and 
drawn  on  to  his  confusion,  by  those  — 

"  Secret,  black,  and  midnight  hags," 

it  becomes  of  little  account  that  he  gives,  as 
Kean  did,  one  heart-rending  picture  of  re- 
morse, after  the  commission  of  a  murder. 
This  might  be  done,  without  representing 
Macbeth. 

Booth's  performance,  on  the  contrary, 
was  constituted  by  imagination,  kindled  and 
swayed  by  supernatural  agencies.  Mac- 
beth's  action  is  a  succession  of  crimes,  but 
the  intervals  are  filled  with  thoughtful 
speech.  The  truth  and  beauty  that  slide 
into  these  musings,  show  the  native  affinity 
of  the  imaginative  faculty  with  what  is  best 
in  man.  A  fine  example  occurs  in  these 
lines :  — 

"  Duncan  is  in  his  grave ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well. 
Treason  has  done  his  worst:  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing, 
Can  touch  him  further." 

The  mood  was  profoundly  retrospective,  but 
the  thoughts  it  generates  were  uttered  with 


MACBETH.  129 

spontaneous  life.  The  "  fitful  fever,"  "  trea- 
son," "  steel,"  "  poison,"  and  the  other  ene- 
mies of  life,  came  as  fresh  thoughts,  not  as 
remembered  words.  The  passage  was  be- 
gun, and  closed,  and  rounded  in  with  tones 
of  mournful  music. 

In  the  banquet  scene,  Banquo  personated 
his  own  ghost,  by  appearing  in  bodily  form, 
and  pointing  to  his  wounds.  This  rank  ex- 
pedient might  have  been  toned  into  art,  by 
means  of  costume,  obscured  lights,  and  espe- 
cially by  a  judicious  wonder  in  the  faces  and 
manner  of  the  guests,  at  the  outbreak  of  Mac- 
beth's  supernatural  fear  of  an  object  they  do 
not  see.  We  prefer,  however,  the  visionary 
Banquo,  the  pure  creation  of  the  usurper's 
wicked  conscience  — 

"  That  coineth  goblins  swift  as  frenzy  thoughts." 

Mr.  Booth  had  to  do  with  the  bodily  pres- 
ence, and  it  must  be  confessed  he  spirit- 
ualized it  strangely.  His  passion  of  blended 
terror  and  fury,  made  the  object  a  "  horrible 
shadow,"  and  left  it  so,  as  it  disappeared. 

"  Can  such  things  be 
And  overcome  us,  like  a  summer's  cloud, 
Without  our  special  wonder?  " 

What  is  the  meaning  of  these  lines  ?     The 


130  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

cool  commentator  says  nothing,  or  replies  — 
"  Pass  over  us  without  wonder,  as  a  casual 
summer's  cloud  passes  unregarded."  But 
the  actor,  aglow  or  chilled  with  the  pas- 
sion of  the  scene,  gave  quite  another  ver- 
sion. The  "  summer's  cloud  "  was  to  him  a 
huge  shadow,  suddenly  scaling  the  heavens, 
charged  with  lightning,  and  filling  the  specta- 
tor with  fear.  He  used  "  overcome  "  in  the 
sense  proximate  to  "  overwhelm,"  or  "  stoop 
upon."  The  speech  is  made  in  answer  to 
his  wife,  who  has  left  the  feast  and  come  to 
his  rescue.  The  vanished  ghost  still  has  him 
in  possession,  and  he  turns  to  his  guests, 
with  — 

"  You  make  me  strange, 
Even  to  the  disposition  that  I  owe, 
When  now  I  think  you,  can  behold  such  sights, 
And  keep  the  natural  ruby  of  your  cheeks, 
When  mine  are  blanched  with  fear," 

and  filling  the  speech  with  an  intense  and 
varied  fury  of  wonder. 

The  same  power  of  imagination  that  con- 
jured up  the  "  unreal  mockery,"  played  also 
in  the  subtile  shades  of  meaning  he  infused 
into  the  passage,  beginning  — 
"  It  will  have  blood." 

This  was  uttered  as  soliloquy,  his  wife  sitting 


MACBETH.  131 

silent  by.  The  first  phrase  came  in  a  reso- 
nant murmur,  like  an  assent  to  a  decree  of 
fate.  Then,  in  livelier  tone  — 

"  They  say  —  blood  will  have  blood  ; 
Stones  have  been  known  to  move,  and  trees  to  speak;  " 

given  as  vivid  conceptions,  not  as  recalled 
impressions.  In  the  concluding  phrase  of 
this  speech  — 

"  The  secret'st  man  of  blood," 

the  word  "  secret'st  "  came  with  so  profound 
and  quiet  an  intonation,  that  we  feared  the 
emphasis  it  manifestly  requires,  must  be  lost. 
But  beneath  the  lowest  depth  of  his  voice, 
there  might  at  any  time  open  a  lower  deep  ; 
and  here,  after  a  momentary  pause,  the  close 
listener  caught  distinctly  from  some  un- 
fathomed  source  the  syllabled  rumination — 

"  Man  of  blood." 

Among  those  passages  of  solemn  beauty, 
which  find  or  make  their  place  side  by  side 
with  the  warlike  speech  of  the  later  scenes, 
that  one  following  the  death  of  the  queen  was 
the  most  significant.  Macbeth  is  left  alone 
in  the  world.  Life,  which  had  seemed  to 
him  before  that  event  of  little  value,  becomes 
a  "  walking  shadow."  The  sense  of  vague 


132  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

desolation  which  the  actor  conveyed  in  this 
phrase,  and  in  the  whole  speech  to  which  it 
belongs,  can  bear  no  closer  comment : 

"  What 's  he, 

That  was  not  born  of  woman  ?  such  a  one 
Am  I  to  fear,  or  none." 

The  word  "  fear"  was  uttered  in  an  upward 
flight  of  sound,  and  carried  with  it  a  scorn  of 
fear.  A  similar  example  occurred  in  Lear. : 

"  Through  tattered  clothes  small  vices  do  appear." 

His  voice  flashed  the  appearance.  Yet  no 
one  could  on  such  examples  found  a  rule  of 
elocution.  There  is  no  rule  for  sympathy  ; 
none  for  imaginative  art. 

"  I  bear  a  charmed  life  which  must  not  yield 
To  one  of  woman  born." 

The  word  "  charmed  "  was  not  broken  in 
two,  as  it  is  usually  pronounced,  but  uttered 
in  one  prolonged,  resonant,  confident  syllable. 
So  close  was  Mr.  Booth's  identification  of 
character  that  its  transpirations  were  mani- 
fest, in  minor  and  unconsidered  ways.  We 
may  instance  as  contrasted  examples  the  dif- 
ferent modes  of  fighting  and  dying,  in  Rich- 
ard and  in  Macbeth.  The  circumstances  are 
externally  similar.  In  each  play  a  brave  and 
guilty  king  dies  in  single  combat,  either  with 


MACBETH.  133 

the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne,  or  his  repre- 
sentative, after  suffering  a  supernatural  and 
prophetic  visitation.  But  how  different  is 
the  soul  of  the  respective  scenes.  In  Rich- 
ard, the  vision  of  the  night  has  passed  like  a 
forgotten  dream.  In  the  battle  — 

o 

"  A  thousand  hearts  are  swelling  in  his  bosom." 

His  kingdom  is  still  at  stake.  The  hope  of 
victory  lives  in  the  fast  embrace  of  his  enor- 
mous and  tenacious  will,  and  never  leaves 
him  till  the  last  blow  is  struck.  Accordingly, 
Booth  as  Richard,  seemed  — 

"  Treble  sinewed,  hearted,  breathed, 
And  fought  maliciously," 

while  in  Macbeth,  he  flung  out  voice  and 
action,  with  the  desperate  abandonment  of  a 
brave  soldier,  consciously  meeting  a  preter- 
natural doom. 


LEAR. 

WHAT  audacity  of  genius,  or  what  igno- 
rance of  the  greatness  of  the  task  could  have 
induced  Mr.  Booth,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  to  study  and  represent  the  character 
of  Lear,  we  need  not  now  inquire.  His  suc- 
cess in  the  personation  is  a  fact  of  dramatic 
history.  Hazlitt  says,  under  date  of  April, 
1820  :  "  We  have  seen  Mr.  Booth's  Lear 
with  great  pleasure.  Mr.  Kean's  is  a  greater 
pleasure  to  come  (so  we  anticipate)."  But 
the  critic  has  left  it  on  record,  that  these 
"  expectations  were  very  considerably  disap- 
pointed ; "  and  he  goes  on  in  his  brilliant 
way,  through  several  pages,  descanting  on 
the  grandeur  of  the  character,  and  marking 
in  scene  after  scene,  "  the  deficiency  and 
desultoriness  of  the  interest  excited  "  by  Mr. 
Kean's  performance  of  it.  This  sounds  like 
implicit  testimony  from  an  unwilling  witness 
to  the  superiority  of  Booth's  Lear.  At  any 
rate,  it  sets  the  absurd  question  of  imitation 
—  a  question  first  put  by  prejudice,  and  since 


LEAR.  135 

repeated  by  dullness  —  entirely  at  rest ;  as 
Booth's  performance  came  first  in  order  of 
time,  took  place  when  he  was  very  young, 
and  when  Kean  was  in  the  full  maturity  of 
his  powers. 

Indeed,  as  the  public  mind  was  preoccupied 
by  Booth's  admired  personation,  there  was 
danger  that  Kean  himself,  when  he  came  to 
play  the  part,  might  be  regarded  as  the  imi- 
tator. And  this  consideration  led  him  into 
perverse  readings,  which  are  duly  scored  by 
Hazlitt's  caustic  pen.  The  critic,  however, 
could  not  dismiss  his  favorite  without  giving 
Booth  one  disparaging  touch,  in  the  follow- 
ing sentence  :  "  In  a  subsequent  part  Mr. 
Kean  did  not  give  to  the  reply  of  Lear  — 

'  Ay,  every  inch  a  king ! ' 

the  same  vehemence  and  emphasis  that  Mr. 
Booth  did,  and  in  this  he  was  justified  ;  for, 
in  the  text,  it  is  an  exclamation  of  indignant 
irony,  not  of  conscious  superiority ;  and  he 
immediately  adds  with  deep  disdain,  to  prove 
the  nothingness  of  his  pretensions  — 

'  When  I  do  stare,  see  how  the  subject  quakes.'  " 

From  this  sentence,  judicially  pronounced, 
we  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  the  thoughtful 


136  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

reader.  Lear  has  just  entered  on  the  scene, 
fantastically  dressed  with  flowers  ;  and  with 
the  exclamation  — 

"  No,  they  cannot  touch  me  for  coming : 
I  am  the  king  himself." 

No  irony  here,  but  downright  mad  earnest. 
Directly  after,  in  reply  to  Gloster's  question  — 

'  Is  't  not  the  king  ?  " 

the  sense  of  outraged  majesty,  which,  com- 
plicated with  filial  ingratitude,  was  the  very 
occasion  of  his  madness,  comes  back  on  him 
in  a  full  tide  of  consciousness,  as  he  ex- 
claims — 

"  Ay,  every  inch  a  king !  " 

Hazlitt  infers  the  irony  from  the  line  which 
follows  — 

"  When  I  do  stare,  see  how  the  subject  quakes." 

To  sustain  his  view  there  should  be  some 
"  subject "  present  who  pays  the  king  no  re- 
spect. There  is  none.  The  only  other  oc- 
cupants of  the  scene  are  Edgar  and  his  blind 
father,  who  stand  by  filled  with  grief  and 
reverence. 

Edgar.    "  0,  thou  side-piercing  sight !  " 
Gloster.   "  0,  let  me  kiss  that  hand !  " 

Lear  is  talking  to  the  shadows  of  his  distem- 


LEAR.  137 

pered  fancy,  which  become  realities  to  him. 
He  goes  on  — 

"  I  pardon  that  man's  life,"  etc. 

In  the  year  1835,  fifteen  years  after  these 
first  performances  in  London,  it  was  our 
privilege,  in  early  youth,  to  see  Mr.  Booth 
enact  Lear,  at  the  National  Theatre  in  Bos- 
ton. We  saw  him  then  for  the  first  time. 
The  blue  eye  ;  the  white  beard  ;  the  nose  in 
profile,  keen  as  the  curve  of  a  falchion ;  the 
ringing  utterance  of  the  names,  "  Regan," 
"  Goneril ;  "  the  close-pent-up  passion,  striv- 
ing for  expression ;  the  kingly  energy ;  the 
affecting  recognition  of  Cordelia  in  the  last 
act  —  made  a  deep  impression  on  our  boyish 
mind.  We  saw  and  heard  all  this,  but  we 
did  not  see  Lear.  We  were  not  old  enough. 

A  closet  study  of  the  great  poet,  coupled 
with  the  reading  of  Charles  Lamb's  refined 
and  ingenious  strictures  on  the  capacity  of 
the  stage,  conspired  to  prevent  our  attend- 
ance on  a  representation  of  either  Hamlet  or 
Lear,  during  the  lapse  of  many  years.  The 
grandeur  and  subtlety  of  Mr.  Booth's  per- 
formance in  other  characters,  however,  led 
us  one  night  to  dare  his  Hamlet.  We  found 
the  atmosphere  of  the  play-house  not  stifling 


138  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

to  the  imagination,  provided  there  was  genius 
on  the  stage.  Lamb's  fantastic  theory  van- 
ished. The  illumination  which  accompanied 
Booth's  Hamlet,  filled  us  with  eagerness  to 
witness  his  Lear. 

We  hold  the  just  representation  of  this 
character  to  be  the  sublime  of  the  actor's  art. 
"  There  be  players  that  we  have  seen  play, 
and  heard  others  praise,  and  that  highly," 
who,  whether  developed  among  us,  or  arriv- 
ing from  over  sea  with  their  budget  of  literary 
credentials,  did  little  else  in  Lear,  but  show 
us  the  choler  or  the  querulousness  of  an  old 
king,  abused  and  abandoned  of  his  children. 
They  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  rendering 
the  stormier  passages  with  melodramatic  fury, 
and  the  milder  ones  with  the  peevish  feeble- 
ness of  age.  Mr.  Kean  seems  to  have  over- 
done the  part  in  both  these  respects.  But 
overdoing,  on  the  stage,  is  usually  the  result 
of  under-thinking.  And  if  there  be  one  char- 
acter in  Shakespeare  which  requires  in  an 
actor  fullness  of  thought,  delicacy  and  subtlety 
of  apprehension,  and  beyond  these,  the  im- 
aginative and  identifying  power,  it  is  the 
character  of  Lear. 

Mi*.  Macready  gave  us  a  scholastic  per- 


LEAR.  139 

formance,  which  we  witnessed  with  a  certain 
pleasure.  It  was  marred  by  the  cold  pre- 
meditation which  marked  all  the  efforts  of 
that  educated  gentleman.  It  did  not  move 
us.  Marvelous  as  was  the  imitation  of  the 
signs  of  passion,  we  felt  the  absence  of  the 
pulse  of  life.  He  was  the  intellectual  show- 
man of  the  character,  not  the  character  itself. 
He  never  got  inside.  Conception  is  a  bless- 
ing-not  vouchsafed  to  actors  of  his  school. 

With  Mr.  Booth  the  case  was  different. 
We  expected  that  he  would  retouch  and  re- 
vivify the  dim  old  pagan  figure,  and  we  were 
not  disappointed.  He  filled  the  hitherto 
empty  niche.  The  grandeur  of  mind,  rising 
colossal  and  unexpected  out  of  age  and  desti- 
tution ;  the  frenzy  of  outraged  feeling  in  this 
child-changed  father,  passing  upward  from  a 
poignant  sense  of  his  own  suffering,  and  en- 
larging to  a  sublime  contemplation  of  the 
abuses  of  the  world ;  the  gradual  untying  of 
that  k'  knot  intrinsicate  "  which  bound  up  his 
faculties  in  strength  and  sanity  ;  the  anguish  ; 
the  pathos  ;  and,  through  all,  the  essential 
kingliness  —  in  a  word,  the  interior  life  of 
Lear,  came  forth  and  shone  in  the  focal  light 
of  Mr.  Booth's  representation. 


140  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

In  the  first  scene  we  note  the  choleric  and 
impatient  majesty  of  the  old  king  ;  who  yet, 
out  of  his  deeper  love,  parleys  with  Cordelia ; 
hears  her  cool  answers ;  controls  his  rising 
passion,  till  at  length  it  bursts  all  bounds,  and 
he  casts  her  off  in  the  speech  beginning  — 

"  Thy  truth  then  be  thy  dower." 

This,  and  the  banishment  of  Kent,  who  takes 
her  part,  employed  the  most  sonorous  ele- 
ments of  Mr.  Booth's  voice,  shaken  and 
weighted  as  with  age,  yet  betraying  latent 
physical  vigor,  and  choked  in  passages  by  the 
force  of  contending  emotions.  We  hold  the 
show  of  vigor  to  be  necessary  to  the  identity 
of  this  character,  enabling  Lear  to  bear  the 
stress  and  strain  on  both  body  and  mind,  to 
which  he  is  afterwards  destined ;  and  respond- 
ing to  the  wonder  expressed  in  a  later  scene, 
when  he  is  turned  out  in  the  storm,  that 
his  — 

"  Life  and  wits  at  once 
Had  not  concluded  all." 

When  Goneril,  putting  aside  the  mask  of 
filial  piety,  first  assumes  the  governess,  Mr. 
Booth  seemed  stunned  as  with  a  blow.  Then 
partially  recovering,  he  put  those  fearful  ques- 
tions —  "  Are  you  our  daughter  ?  "  "  Does 


LEAR.  141 

any  here  know  me  ?  "  "  Who  is  it  that  can 
tell  me  who  I  am?  "  and  the  rest  in  a  manner 
as  if  freighted  with  the  possibility  of  madness. 
The  agony  of  mind,  the  terrible  suspicion 
just  waking  in  him  that  he  has  dispossessed 
himself  irrevocably,  the  bursts  of  anger  — 

"  Degenerate  bastard !    I'll  not  trouble  thee;  " 

the  selfish  regret  — 

"  Woe  that  toq  late  repents !  " 

the  affectionate  regret  — 

"  0,  most  small  fault, 
How  ugly  didst  thou  in  Cordelia  show; " 

the  imperious  impatience  towards  Albany; 
the  desperation,  as  he  strikes  his  head  — 

"  0,  Lear,  Lear,  Lear, 
Beat  at  this  gate,  that  let  thy  folly  in, 
And  thy  dear  judgment  out;  " 

those  manifold  flaws  and  starts,  all  crowded 
into  a  few  lines,  and  a  few  moments,  were  ren- 
dered as  they  were  conceived,  with  wonder- 
ful variety  and  truth.  Even  in  this  whirl- 
wind of  his  passion,  how  fine  and  kingly  the 
courtesy  of  his  reply  to  Albany,  who  dis- 
claims all  knowledge  of  what  had  moved  him, 
in  the  words  — 

"  It  may  be  so,  my  lord." 


142  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

(So  again  at  the  end  of  the  play,  in  a  scene 
unhappily  omitted  by  Mr.  Booth,  Lear  speaks 
to  Albany  — 

"  Pray  you,  undo  this  button.    Thank  you,  sir;  " 

the  phrase  receiving  an  exquisite  accent  of 
courtesy,  from  the  infinite  pathos  of  the  sit- 
uation.) 

Then  comes  the  imprecation  on  Goneril. 
It  is  customary  to  call  it  "  the  curse."  This 
word  roughens  the  sense  of  it  unnecessarily. 
It  is  in  substance  a  pagan  prayer,  that  she 
may  be  childless ;  but  "  if  she  must  teem," 
that  her  child  may  be  a  — 

"  Thwart  disnatured  torment  to  her; " 

that  she  may  suffer  the  same  kind  and  quality 
of  anguish  which  she  is  now  inflicting  on  her 
father.  The  principle  of  the  prayer  is  "an 
eye  for  an  eye."  Putting  "  Jehovah  "  in- 
stead of  "  Nature,"  a  Jew  might  have  uttered 
it.  Mr.  Booth  began  it  as  a  solemn  adjuration 
to  the  unseen  power  of  Nature.  The  indig- 
nant bitterness  in  the  terms  of  imprecation, 
seemed  as  if  it  was  converted  out  of  sweetest 
images  of  what  a  child  should  be,  that  lay  in 
the  core  of  his  fatherly  heart.  This  double 
action  of  his  mind,  in  the  agony  which  it  in- 


LEAR.  143 

volved,  swayed  and  shook  his  kneeling  figure 
and  lent  his  voice  a  wild  vibration  that  drew 
involuntary  sympathy  and  awe.  The  heart 
followed  him  as  he  arose  and  ran  out  with 
extended  arms.  Lear  reenters,  and  in  the 
course  of  his  speech  to  Goneril,  in  a  similar 
vein  of  feeling,  but  with  that  change  sug- 
gested by  the  lines  — 

"  That  these  hot  tears  which  break  from  me  perforce, 
Should  make  thee  worth  them  — " 

Mr.  Booth  produced  one  of  those  large  effects 
which  distinguished  his  personations. 

"  Thou  shall  find 

That  I'll  resume  the  shape  which  thou  dost  think 
I  have  cast  off  forever." 

Into  the  word  "  resume,"  he  cast  the  whole 
energy  of  his  royal  will,  with  a  volumed, 
prolonged,  and  ringing  intonation.  His  very 
figure  seemed  to  dilate  with  majesty. 

There  is  a  scene,  omitted  on  the  stage,  at 
the  end  of  this  First  Act,  which  rivals  in 
pathos  that  omitted  scene  in  Othello,  which 
we  commented  on  in  our  notice  of  that  part. 
It  consists  of  a  brief  dialogue  between  Lear 
and  the  Fool.  The  Fool's  talk,  "  matter  and 
impertinency  mixed,"  is  partly  responded  to 
by  Lear,  whose  few  musing  "  asides,"  and 


144  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

broken  exclamations,  touch  the  core  of  the 
plot,  and  point  to  the  tragic  consummation. 
Let  the  reader  ponder  this  scene,  if  he  would 
pass  into  the  presence  of  the  character. 

In  the  opening  scene  with  Regan,  in  the 
Second  Act,  all  the  unexpressed  tenderness 
which  the  old  king  had  felt  for  his  best-loved 
child  Cordelia,  seemed  to  pass  by  a  kind  of 
vicarious  deflection  upon  Regan,  now  his  only 
fatherly  hope. 

Regan.  "  I  am  glad  to  see  your  highness." 
Lear.     "  Regan,  I  think  you  are !    I  know  what  reason 
I  have  to  think  so ;  if  thou  should  not  be  glad, 
I  would  divorce  me  from  thy  mother's  tomb, 
Sepulchring  an  adultress.    Beloved  Regan, 
Thy  sister 's  naught.    0,  Regan,  she  hath  tied 
Sharp-toothed  unkindness  like  a  vulture,  here ;  — 
I  can  scarce  speak  to  thee." 

When  coldly  advised  to  return  to  Goneril  he 
says  — 

"  Ask  —  her  — forgiveness  ?  " 

Then,  with  mock  humility  — 

"  Dear  daughter,  I  confess  that  I  am  old,"  etc. 

And,  when  still  pressed  to -return,  he  rises 
from  his  knees  with  the  tremendous  exclama- 
tion— 

"  Never,  Regan : 

She  hath  abated  me  of  half  my  train ; 
Looked  black  upon  me ;  struck  me  with  her  tongue, 


LEAR.  145 

Most  serpent-like,  upon  the  very  heart: 
All  the  stored  vengeances  of  heaven  fall 
On  her  ingrateful  top." 

In  these  passages,  and  in  the  recurrence  to 
his  desperate  hope  in  Regan  — 

"  Thy  tender  hefted  nature  shall  not  give 
Thee  o'er  to  harshness        .... 

Thou  better  know'st 
The  offices  of  nature,  bond  of  childhood,"  etc. 

Mr.  Booth  sounded  the  various  stops  of  grief, 
of  parental  love,  of  irony,  of  indignation,  of 
baffled  but  clinging  hope,  which  filled  inter- 
changeably, or  inhabited  together  in  discord, 
the  heart  of  Lear,  until  —  Goneril  enters. 

The  transcendant  art  of  Shakespeare,  in 
bringing  her  upon  the  scene,  that  the  two 
unnatural  daughters  may  vie  with  each  other 
in  impious  speech,  so  that  Lear,  heart-struck, 
if  not  heart-broken,  is  torn  and  cast  loose  at 
last  from  all  ties  of  earth,  and  stands  appeal- 
ing to  the  heavens :  — 

"  You  see  me  here,  you  gods,  a  poor  old  man, 
As  full  of  grief  as  age." 

The  responsive  art  of  our  actor,  who,  touched 
with  noble  anger,  filled  with  grief  and  un- 
shed tears,  crowned  with  majesty  yet  with- 
out its  lendings  —  abjured  all  roofs,  after 
visiting  upon  those  "  unnatural  hags  "  the 
10 


146  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

overwhelming   energy  of  his  wrath,  as   he 
rushes  out  into  the  storm  ! 

The  final  test  of  an  actor's  worthiness  to 
delineate  this  sublime  figure,  is  his  power  to 
catch  and  reproduce  the  insanity  of  Lear. 
Hazlitt  says :  "  Mr.  Kean's  performance, 
when  the  king's  intellects  begin  to  fail  him, 
and  are  at  last  quite  disordered,  was  curious 
and  quaint,  rather  than  impressive  or  natural. 
He  driveled  and  looked  vacant,  and  moved 
his  lips  so  as  not  to  be  heard,  and  did  nothing, 
and  appeared  at  times  as  if  he  would  quite 
forget  himself.  The  spectator  was  big  with 
expectation  of  seeing  some  extraordinary 
means  employed ;  but  the  general  result  did 
not  correspond  to  the  waste  of  preparation." 
Dana  takes  a  directly  opposite  view.  He 
says :  "It  has  been  said  that  Lear  is  a  study 
for  one  who  would  make  himself  acquainted 
with  the  workings  of  an  insane  mind.  And 
it  is  hardly  less  true  that  the  acting  of  Kean 
was  an  embodying  of  these  workings.  There 
was  a  childish  feeble  gladness  in  the  eye,  and 
a  half-piteous  smile  about  the  mouth,  at  times, 
which  one  could  scarce  look  upon  without 
tears."  If  this  be  true,  the  question  still 
remains,  did  Kean  represent  the  insanity  of 


LEAS.  147 

Lear  ?  The  phases  and  modes  of  mental 
derangement  differ  as  widely  in  different  per- 
sons, as  do  the  operations  of  the  healthful 
mind.  A  generalized  expression  of  insanity- 
would  hardly  suffice  for  the  character  we  are 
considering ;  but  this,  it  would  seem,  was  the 
sum  of  Kean's  achievement. 

The  madness  of  Lear  was  not  a  chaos  of 
mind  ;  neither  was  it  a  declension  towards 
imbecility.  It  was  an  aberration.  The  im- 
agination was  exalted,  although  diverted  from 
the  truth  of  things ;  and  presented,  at  times, 
a  grandeur  of  thought  and  speech,  which  has 
no  parallel  in  dramatic  literature.  The  rea- 
soning power  was  left  intact,  even  when  con- 
fusion reigned  among  the  subjects  of  its  ex- 
ercise. We  think  the  text  of  Shakespeare, 
deeply  mused  upon,  will  bear  out  this  inter- 
pretation. It  is  certain  that  the  view  might 
have  been  deduced  from  Mr.  Booth's  charac- 
terization. In  the  storm  scenes,  where  Lear, 
with  a  Greek  vigor  of  imagination,  personifies 
the  elements,  addressing  them  as  substantial 
beings,  and  with  a  majesty  of  self-exaltation, 
yet  dashed  with  madness,  calls  them  — 

"  Servile  ministers 
That  have  with  two  pernicious  daughters  "  — 


148  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

leagued  against  him,  the  acting  of  Booth  was 
indescribably  grand.  What  Lamb  calls  "  the 
contemptible  machinery  of  the  storm,"  was 
forgotten.  It  was  the  tempest  in  Lear's 
mind,  that  Mr.  Booth  made  us  conscious  of, 
and  this  range  of  his  personation  reached  the 
topmost  height  of  the  actor's  art. 

His  mind  played  over  the  minor  crazed 
passages,  with  the  "  nimble  stroke  of  quick 
cross  lightning."  There  was  no  weakness  or 
vacancy  in  any  word  or  act.  Instead  of  "  a 
childish  feeble  gladness  in  the  eye,"  we  saw 
only  the  blue  light  of  a  speculative  madness 
shifting  and  shining  in  his  eyes.  His  sharp- 
ened looks,  and  his  keen  crazy  questioning  of 
Edgar,  whom  yet  he  treated  with  a  kind  of 
fraternal  tenderness ;  the  visioning  eye  and 
airy  manner,  when  dealing  with  the  creations 
of  his  brain,  — 

"  Arraign  her  first,  'tis  Goneril," 

and  — 

"  Then  let  them  anatomize  Regan ;  see  what  breeds  about 
her  heart "  — 

if  these  things  did  not  make  us  weep,  it  was 
because  they  touched  a  depth  below  the 
source  of  tears. 

In  order  to  avoid  a  vain  repetition  of  terms, 


LEAK.  149 

we  touch  lightly  the  pathos  of  the  chamber 
scene  which  follows  the  arrival  of  Cordelia. 
His  return  to  soundness  of  mind,  in  the  ap- 
peasing presence  of  his  one  true  daughter, 
was  as  subtle,  tender,  and  graduated,  as  the 
departure  had  been  violent  and  willful.  Never, 
even  from  his  mouth,  have  we  heard  a  more 
pathetic  utterance,  than  lie  gave  to  the  line  — 

"  If  you  have  poison  for  me  I  will  drink  it." 

Not  only  was  it  filled  with  music,  but  with 
the  remorseful  humility  of  a  bruised  heroic 
heart. 

Our  notes  on  Booth's  Lear  must  here  close 
abruptly.  The  last  scene,  the  great  scene  for 
sounding  the  inmost  depths  of  human  feeling, 
not  only  in  this  play,  but  in  all  dramatic 
literature,  was  left  out.  Booth  played  Tate's 
Lear.  It  does  not  lessen  our  chagrin  to  add 
that  Garrick  played  at  an  earlier  date,  and 
Kean  at  a  later,  in  that  diversion  on  Shake- 
speare's grandest  drama,  which  leaves  out  the 
indispensable  Fool,  and  puts  in  the  superflu- 
ous folly. 

We  have  no  fault  to  find  with  Booth's 
Lear  so  far  as  he  followed  Shakespeare.  We 
sat  at  his  feet.  But  his  performance  was  a 


150  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

magnificent  fragment.  It  might  be  compared 
to  that  torso  of  Hercules,  which  Angelo  so 

7  O 

reverently  studied,  and  which  conveyed 
through  its  knotted  and  swayed  outlines,  the 
suggestion  of  a  grief  we  may  guess  at,  but 
which,  in  its  fullness,  must  remain  forever 
unexpressed. 


CASSIUS. 

IN  earlier  years  Mr.  Booth  assumed  many 
minor  characters  of  Shakespeare,  which  he 
afterwards  surrendered,  as  Richard  II.,  Hot- 
spur, King  John,  Posthumous.  There  may 
still  be  found  in  London  a  print  of  him  in  the 
latter  character.  Cassius  was  the  last  part 
so  surrendered.  He  played  it  in  Boston, 
with  Mr.  Forrest  as  Brutus,  about  the  year 
1837. 

Cassius  was  a  Roman,  whose  subtle  mind, 
restless  spirit,  and  splenetic  humor,  allied  him 
to  the  modern  Italian,  and  showed  some 
points  of  likeness  to  lago.  But  when  we 
name  this  "  Italian  fiend,"  the  generous  and 
constant  friendship  between  Brutus  and 
Cassius  must  of  course  be  put  from  view. 
The  noble  head,  the  mobile  features,  the 
spare  figure  of  Booth  gave  him  a  singular 
external  fitness  for  the  part.  Perhaps  no 
passage  in  any  performance  of  his,  tran- 
scended in  colloquial  style  the  well-known 
street  scene  with  Brutus.  His  description  of 


152  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

himself  and  Caesar  swimming  in  the  Tiber 
on  that  "  raw  and  gusty  day  ;  "  and  of  Caesar's 
sickness  "  when  he  was  in  Spain,"  were 
especially  noteworthy.  Booth's  vivid  por- 
traiture recreated  the  event.  He  touched 
the  arm  of  Brutus ;  leaned,  but  without  un- 
due familiarity,  upon  his  shoulder.  In  the 
line  — 

"  His  coward  lips  did  from  their  color  fly," 

Cassius,  by  a  subtle  reversion  of  the  common 
phrase,  "  the  color  fled  from  his  lips,"  implies 
a  sarcasm  on  Caesar's  quality  as  a  soldier. 
Booth  illustrated  the  meaning  by  a  momen- 
tary gesture,  as  if  carrying  a  standard.  The 
movement  was  fine,  as  giving  edge  to  the 
sarcasm,  but  pointed  to  a  redundancy  of 
action,  which  sometimes  appeared  in  this 
great  actor's  personations  ;  marking  the  ex- 
cess in  him,  however,  of  those  high  histrionic 
powers,  keen  feeling  and  shaping  imagination. 
His  Cassius  was  signalized  by  one  action 
of  characteristic  excellence  and  originality. 
After  Caesar  had  been  encompassed  and 
stabbed  by  the  conspirators,  and  lay  extended 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate-house,  Booth 
strode  right  across  the  dead  body,  and  out  of 
the  scene,  in  silent  and  disdainful  triumph. 


SIR   GILES  OVERREACH. 

OUT  of  Shakespeare,  through  Massinger, 
down  to  the  lowest  quarry  to  which  his 
genius  deigned  to  stoop  —  to  Payne,  Col- 
man,  Otway,  even  to  Sheil  and  Maturin,  the 
path  of  our  actor  was  a  track  of  light ;  and, 
against  the  mass  of  dramatic  dullness  it  some- 
times met, 

"  Stuck  fiery  off  indeed." 

His  "  Sir  Giles  Overreach,"  in  Massinger's 
play,  "A  New  Way  to  pay  Old  Debts," 
stands  in  our  memory  as  a  representation  of 
singular  solid  force.  We  propose  to  relimn 
some  of  the  bolder  strokes,  and  hold  a  can- 
dle towards  some  of  the  finer  touches  of  this 
artist's  work.  When  he  speaks  of  having, 
as  servants  to  his  daughter  Margaret  — 

"  The  ladies  of  errant  knights  decayed," 

he  adds,  — 

"  There  having  ever  been 
More  than  a  feud,  a  strange  antipathy 
Between  us  and  true  gentry," 

Booth  infused  into  those  two  italicized  words 


154  THE    TRAGEDIAN. 

the  aspiring  and  implacable  hatred  of  the 
rich  and  overbearing  commoner.  His  ges- 
ture, like  his  speech,  escaped  the  confinement 
of  rules.  It  ^was  the  natural  language  of 
imaginative  passion ;  or  the  "  complement 
extern "  of  fine  perceptions.  In  the  scene 
where  Sir  Giles  urges  Marrall  to  work  the 
ruin  of  Wellborn,  and  says  — 

"  Persuade  him  that  'tis  better  steal  than  beg," 

he  gave  the  word  "  steal "  with  the  fingers 
of  his  right  hand  downward,  and  as  in  act  of 
taking :  "  than  beg,"  palm  up,  as  in  act  of 
solicitation  —  and  both  movements  with  rapid 
ease. 

The  scene  with  Margaret,  where  he  tries 
to  induce  her  to  receive,  or  if  need  be,  catch, 
the  attentions  of  Lord  Lovel,  was  a  master- 
piece. 

"  If  you  are  my  true  daughter, 
You'll  venture  alone  with  one  man,  though  he  came 
Like  Jupiter  to  Semele." 

Margaret  protests  — 

"  If  to  obey  you  I  forget  my  honor, 
He  must  and  will  forsake  me." 

Sir  Giles.    "  How !    Forsake  thee ! 
Do  1  wear  a  sword  for  fashion;  or  is  this  arm 
Shrunk  up  or  withered?    Does  there  live  a  man, 
Of  that  large  list  I  have  encountered  with, 
Can  truly  say,  I  e'er  gave  inch  of  ground, 
Not  purchased  by  his  blood,  that  did  oppose  me?  " 


SIB   GILES   OVERREACH.  155 

These  lines  were  so  full  and  bristling  with 
shining  points  of  the  actor's  art,  that  we  shall 
attempt  an  analysis  of  Mr.  Booth's  victori- 
ous method  of  rendering  them.  He  uttered 
"  forsake  thee  !  "  with  a  shriek  of  astonish- 
ment. 

"  Do  I  wear  a  sword  for  fashion  ?  " 

beginning  low,  and  as  on  a  rising  wave  of 
passion,  the  last  word  blown  disdainful,  like 
the  foam  from  its  crest.  In  saying  it,  he 
clutched  the  scabbard  with  his  left  hand,  and 
struck  the  sword-hilt  with  his  right. 

"  Or  is  this  arm 
Shrunk  up  or  withered'?  " 

He  grasped  his  outstretched  right  arm  with 
the  fingers  of  the  left  hand,  and  gave  the 
phrase  in  throated  and  roughened  tones  of 
scorn.  The  words  of  the  continuing  lines 
were  "  rammed  with  life,"  and  full  of  the 
soh'd  temper  of  Sir  Giles,  down  to  the  word 
"  blood ;  "  when  his  voice  dropped  suddenly 
to  its  subterranean  chamber,  and  he  uttered 
the  phrase  "  that  did  oppose  me,"  in  a  cool 
depth  of  tone,  which  seemed  to  assure  the 
doom  of  all  antagonists. 

"Wellborn,  cheated  and  hated  of  Sir  Giles, 
is  presented  to  him  by  Lady  Allworth,  with 


156  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

the  remark,  "  If  I  am  welcome,  bid  him  so." 
The  manner  in  which  Booth  stood,  with  his 
back  turned,  betraying  an  inward  strife  by 
subtle  motions  of  head,  hands,  and  features, 
until,  mastering  repugnance  by  policy,  he 
turned  suddenly  with  affected  heartiness, 
and  grasped  the  youth's  hand,  saying,  "  My 
nephew!" — was  a  most  felicitous  touch. 
To  Lord  Lovel's  question  if  he  is  not  moved 
by  the  imprecations  of  those  he  has  wronged, 
Sir  Giles  replies  — 

"  Yes,  as  rocks  are 

When  foaming  billows  split  themselves  against 
Their  flinty  ribs ;  or  as  the  moon  is  moved 
When  wolves,  with  hunger  pined,  howl  at  her  brightness." 

The  change  of  voice  from  the  howling  pack 
to  the  silver  clearness  of  the  moon,  in  the 
words  "  at  her  brightness,"  made  the  listener 
feel  the  assumption  of  unapproachable  seren- 
ity. The  whole  speech  was  a  magnificent 
example  of  self-assertion,  and  suggested  how 
grandly  Mr.  Booth  could  have  enacted  Co- 
riolanus.  We  do  not  know  that  he  ever  did 
personate  this  character ;  but  one  night  in 
Cincinnati,  when  the  mood  was  on,  he  took 
down  a  volume  of  Shakespeare,  and  read  the 
whole  play  aloud  to  his  son  Edwin. 

Lamb's  argument  that  the  sight  of  objects 


SIH   GILES   OVERREACH.  157 

dispels  the  imagination  of  them,  is  disproved 
by  notable  examples.  Does  not  the  imagina- 
tion rather  deal  with  sensible  objects,  accord- 
ing to  its  own  exalting  laws  ?  Fuseli,  the 
painter,  said  that  after  reading  Chapman's 
most  characteristic  translation  of  Homer,  he 
went  out  into  the  street,  and  the  men  he 
met,  seemed  to  him  to  be  ten  feet  high ! 
Father  Hennepin,  the  first  white  man  who 
ever  looked  upon  the  Falls  of  Niagara, 
makes,  in  his  quaint  and  simple  record,  the 
wild  surmise,  "  that  they  are  at  least  six 
hundred  feet  high !  "  And  he  bore  truer 
testimony  to  the  spirit  of  the  scene,  than  does 
the  scientific  tourist,  who  takes  the  altitude 
of  the  cliff  in  English  feet.  When  Booth, 
on  a  certain  occasion,  as  Sir  Giles,  chal- 
lenged Lord  Lovel,  and  ran  (not  shuffled) 
out,  but  finding  he  was  not  followed,  came 
directly  back,  stood  just  within  the  scene, 
and  uttered  these  words  in  his  deepest  voice, 

"  Are  you  pale?  "  — 

he  took  his  stature  from  the  mind  :  his  figure 
seemed  to  dilate  with  the  vast  expansion  of 
his  will,  and  actually  to  overstate  in  physical 
dimension,  the  bulky  and  brawny  Scotchman 
who  played  Lord  Lovel. 


LUKE. 

IN  Massinger's  play  entitled  the  "  City 
Madam,"  adapted  for  the  modern  stage  under 
the  name  of  "  Riches,"  Mr.  Booth  played  the 
part  of  Luke.  The  plot  is  simple.  Luke,  a 
ruined  prodigal,  is  obliged  to  accept,  in  order 
to  "keep  base  life  afoot,"  the  situation  of 
servant  to  his  brother's  wife,  the  City  Madam. 
His  conduct  in  this  capacity  is  so  exemplary 
that  his  brother,  believing  in  the  prodigal's 
reformation,  yet  willing  to  test  its  reality, 
feigns  death,  leaving  Luke  all  his  immense 
wealth.  The  servant  turns  tyrant,  maltreats 
his  former  mistress,  and  is  reveling  at  a  feast 
in  solitary  luxury,  when  Sir  John  appears,  as 
from  the  dead.  Luke,  though  struck  at  first 
with  terror,  soon  comprehends  the  situation, 
and  dashes  from  the  scene  in  a  rage. 

The  sight  of  our  actor,  a  short  man  in  ser- 
vant's livery,  carrying  a  number  of  band-boxes 
and  bundles,  and  scolded  by  madam  for  his 
tardiness,  at  first  provoked  a  smile.  But  the 
manner  of  gentle  reverence,  and  the  intellec- 


LUKE.  159 

tual  intonation  with  which  he  delivered  the 
following  speech,  soon  changed  the  feeling  of 
the  auditor  :  — 

"  I  am  your  creature,  madam, 
And  if  I  have  in  aught  offended, 
I  humbly  ask  your  pardon. 
But  as  I  was  obliged  to  bring 

These  from  the  Tower,  these  from  the  old  Exchange, 
And  these  from  Westminster,  —  I  could  not  come 
Mvck  —  sooner." 

Coming  from    the    room   filled   with   riches 

O 

whicli    he    has    unexpectedly   inherited,    he 

says  — 

"  I  am  sublimed,  I  walk  on  air!  " 

not  with  that  epicurism  of  elocution  which 
the  words  invite,  but  with  the  roughened 
voice  of  a  man  who  could  not  contain  his 
selfish  joy. 

He  presided  at  his  solitary  banquet  with  a 
kind  of  Satanic  grace.  When,  in  the  midst 
of  it,  terror  at  the  appearance  of  his  brother 
gives  way  to  rage,  and  he  dashes  past  him 
with  the  words  — 

"  Bar  not  my  way !     The  world  is  wide  enough 
For  thee  and  me," 

i 

he  sounded  the  grand  organ  stop  of  his  voice, 
with  that  easy  power,  which  at  once  startled 
and  charmed  the  audience. 


SIR  EDWARD  MORTIMER. 

WILLIAM  GODWIN,  on  seeing  Booth,  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  play  lago,  was  so  struck  with 
his  excellence  that  he  wrote  the  young  tra- 
gedian a  letter,  filled  with  discriminating 
praise.  From  Godwin's  novel  called  "  Caleb 
Williams,"  Colman  dramatized  the  play  called 
the  "  Iron  Chest ; "  and  Mr.  Booth's  por- 
trayal of  the  principal  character,  we  have 
always  regarded  as  one  of  his  most  effective 
personations.  We  use  the  adjective  with 
deliberate  intent.  Effective  it  was  beyond 
measure,  and  above  praise.  Indeed,  if  it  had 
been  our  actor's  purpose  to  combine  in  one 
representation  all  the  daring,  and  difficult, 
and  terrific  feats,  in  look,  voice,  action,  of 
which  his  supple  frame  was  capable,  he  could 
not  have  selected  a  better  field  for  the  ex- 
hibition than  this  play  affords. 

Who  that  ever  saw  Mr.  Booth  as  Sir  Ed- 
ward Mortimer,  can  forget  his  utterance  of 
the  name  "Adam,  Adam  Winterton,"  just 
before  the  scene  draws,  and  discloses  him 


SIR  EDWARD  MORTIMER.  161 

seated  at  his  library  table  ?  It  carried  from 
the  invisible  speaker  the  whole  tragedy,  in 
its  muffled,  yet  resonant  and  boding  cry. 
The  opening  soliloquy  of  Sir  'Edward,  a  sen- 
sitive, generous,  honorable  man,  but  stained 
with  the  guilt  of  a  secret  murder,  was  filled 
with  melancholy  beauty.  He  invokes  — 

"  That  mind  of  man 

Which  lifts  us  to  the  stars,  which  carries  us 
O'er  the  swollen  waters  of  the  angry  deep, 
As  swallows  skim  the  air." 

Booth  gave,  with  his  picturing  voice,  the 
very  look  of  the  chafed  and  billowy  sea  — 
then,  by  a  fine  ethereal  transition,  the  motion 
of  a  bird  in  air. 

The  passion  of  this  play  is,  as  the  actor 
once  quaintly  expressed  it,  "  on  the  tight 
jump  all  the  time."  Every  scene  in  which 
Sir  Edward  appears  has  a  pyrotechnic  bril- 
liancy. The  interest  centres,  not  in  the 
evolution  of  character,  but  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  special  scenes  and  situations.  These 
were  given  with  wonderful  resource  of  voice 
and  look,  and  equal  vividness  and  variety  of 
action.  Witness  for  instance  the  first  scene 
with  the  secretary,  Wilford,  who  seeks  to 
penetrate  his  master's  secret. 
11 


162  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

"  Sirrah !  What  am  I  about? 
Oh,  Honor!  Honor! 
Thy  pile  should  be  so  uniform,  displace 
One  atom  of  thee,  and  the  slightest  breath 
Of  a  rude  peasant  makes  thine  owner  tremble 
For  his  whole  building !  " 

The  rapid  changes  in  voice  and  manner,  in 
this  speech,  and  the  original  intonation  of  the 
concluding  phrase,  at  once  reckless  and  sus- 
tained, and  as  if  the  building  were  about 
tumbling  into  ruin,  —  were  marked  by  Mr. 
Booth's  unique  and  inimitable  method. 

No  actor  we  have  ever  seen  seemed  to 
have  such  control  over  the  vital  and  invol- 
untary functions.  He  would  tremble  from 
head  to  foot,  or  tremble  in  one  outstretched 
arm  to  the  finger  tips,  while  holding  it  in  the 
firm  grasp  of  the  other  hand  —  as  in  the  last 
scene  of  this  play,  where  he  says  — 

"  Curse  on  my  flesh  to  tremble  so." 
The  veins  of  his  corded  and  magnificent  neck 
would  swell,  and  the  whole  throat  and  face 
become  suffused  with  crimson  in  a  moment, 
in  the  crisis  of  passion,  to  be  succeeded  on 
the  ebb  of  feeling  by  an  ashy  paleness.  To 
throw  the  blood  into  the  face  is  a  compara- 
tively easy  feat  for  a  sanguine  man  by  sim- 
ply holding  the  breath  ;  but  for  a  man  of  pale 


SIR  EDWARD  MORTIMER.  163 

complexion  to  speak  passionate  and  thrilling 
words  pending  the  suffusion,  is  quite  another 
thing.  On  the  other  hand  it  must  be  ob- 
served that  no  amount  of  merely  physical 
exertion,  or  exercise  of  voice,  could  bring 
color  into  that  pale,  proud,  intellectual  face. 
This  was  abundantly  shown  in  Shylock,  in 
Lear,  in  Hamlet,  where  the  passion  was  in- 
tense, but  where  the  face  continued  clear  and 
pale. 

To  return  to  Sir  Edward.  In  the  terrible 
scene  in  the  library,  when  he  proposes  the 
oath  of  secrecy  to  Wilford,  and  — 

"  Waxing  desperate  with  imagination," 

reenacts  the  murder  he  has  confessed  ;  in  the 
threat  to  Wilford  — 

"  Dare  to  make 

The  slightest  movement  to  awake  my  fears, 
And  the  gaunt  criminal  naked  and  stake-tied, 
Left  on  the  heath  to  blister  in  the  sun 
Till  lingering  death  shall  end  his  agony, 
Compared  to  thee,  shall  seem  more  enviable 
Than  cherubs  to  the  damned !  " 

the  accents  of  which,  even  to  the  last  rever- 
berant word,  ring  startlingly  clear  in  our 
memory  —  in  all  this  scene  no  color  mantled 
his  face,  or  mingled  in  the  manifest  working 
of  his  features.  But  when  old  Winterton 


164  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

comes  in,  and  Sir  Edward  turns  to  Wilford, 
fixing  him  with  magnetic  glance,  and  utters 
the  parting  admonition  — 

"  I  shall  be  angry, 
Be  very  angry  if  I  find  you  —  careless," 

the  reiterated  word,  given  in  prolonged  and 
kindling  tones,  carried  also  a  flush  of  feeling 
visibly  into  his  face.  In  a  former  scene, 
where  he  seizes  Wilford,  and  cries  out  — 

"  Slave !  I  will  crush  thee !  pulverize  thy  frame, 
That  no  vile  particle  of  prying  nature 

May ha !  ha !  ha !  I  will  not  harm  thee,  boy, 

O, agony !  " 

and  rushes  from  the  scene,  the  gust  of  anger 
gathers  and  spends  itself  without  change  of 
color;  but  the  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling 
that  takes  place  with  the  words  — 

"  I  will  not  harm  thee,  boy," 

crimsons  his  face  and  neck  with  burning 
shame.  His  ghastly  pallor  in  the  death 
scene  shall  conclude  this  episode  on  color. 
In  a  word,  he  commanded  his  own  pulses,  as 
well  as  the  pulses  of  his  auditors,  with  des- 
potic ease. 

John  Howard  Payne,  in  a  published  criti- 
cism on  Booth's  Mortimer,  speaks  happily  of 
the  "  manual  eloquence  "  he  exhibited.  The 


SJR  EDWARD  MORTIMER.  165 

beauty  of  this  hand-play,  shone  throughout 
the  drama,  above  the  terror  of  the  represen- 
tation. The  indescribable  motion  of  both 
hands  towards  those  heart- wounds  — 

"  Too  tender  e'en  for  tenderness  to  touch;  " 

the  creeping,  trembling  play  of  his  pale,  thin 
fingers  over  his  maddening  brain  ;  and  his 
action  when  describing  the  assassination,  may 
serve  as  examples. 

A  melancholy  interest  attaches  to  this  part, 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  was  the  last  char- 
acter in  which  Mr.  Booth  ever  appeared. 


BRUTUS. 

MR.  BOOTH  was  never  the  literary  fashion. 
He  came  unheralded,  and  without  letters. 
He  was  obliged  to  introduce  himself  to  the 
manager  of  the  Richmond  theatre,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  first  performance  in  this  coun- 
try. He  came  to  Boston  and  appeared  in 
Colman's  play  called  the  "Mountaineers,"  — 
"  Octavian  by  Mr.  Booth  "  —  to  a  moderate 
house.  But  the  fire  took,  and  the  next  day 
the  town  was  ablaze  with  interest  in  the  new 
tragedian  —  an  interest  that  scarcely  flagged 
during  the  following  thirty  years. 

It  was  the  native  whim  of  this  monarch  of 
tragedy,  to  go  about  incognito  ;  to  mix  with 
the  people ;  to  play  at  second-rate  theatres. 
The  reward  he  got,  beside  that  richest  and 
ever  sure  reward  which  the  artist  enjoys  in 
the  excellence  of  his  work,  was  a  fullness  and 
heartiness  of  popular  appreciation  which  our 
actor  felt  was  infinitely  better  than  the  cool 
approval  of  scholars.  He  avoided  the  listless 
and  fashionable  audiences,  with  the  blue  blood 


BRUTUS.  167 

sleeping  in  their  veins,  and  who  go  to  the 
theatre  for  idle  pastime.  He  turned  with  joy 
to  crowded  audiences  of  the  people  with  the 
red  blood  leaping  in  their  arteries,  who  went 
to  the  theatre  to  see  the  play,  and  him  in  it ; 
and  whom  he  melted  by  the  pathos,  or  raised 
by  the  grandeur,  or  charmed  by  the  beauty 
of  his  impersonations.  If  the  exclusive,  of 
nice  culture,  excluded  himself  from  these  im- 
personations, on  account  of  the  place  in  which 
they  shone,  or  the  company  who  enjoyed 
their  light,  then  the  loss  was  irreparably  his. 
The  current  of  our  remark  brings  us  to  the 
little  "  Eagle,"  a  theatre  in  Boston,  about  as 
large  as  the  "  Globe  "  theatre  in  London  in 
which  Shakespeare  had  a  share,  and  in  which 
Shakespeare  played.  Good  society  shunned 
the  "  Globe."  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Lord  Bacon  — 

"  Large-browed  Verulam," 

ever  set  foot  in  it.  When  Shakespeare's 
company  played  before  the  Queen,  it  was  at 
the  palace,  and  not  at  the  play-house.  The 
"  Globe  "  was  not  fashionable.  Neither  was 
the  "  Eagle."  A  few  gray  heads,  whose 
hearts  continued  warm  ;  a  few  critical  brains  ; 


168  THE    TRAGEDIAN. 

a  few  enthusiastic  youths  ;  and  the  remainder 
of  the  little  cockpit  was  filled  up  by  that 
crowd  which  the  seething  city  spills  after 
nightfall  into  its  places  of  amusement. 
Bounded  in  that  nutshell,  Hamlet  became 
king  of  the  infinite  spaces  of  thought ;  Rich- 
ard found  "  ample  room  and  verge  enough  " 
for  his  vast  ambition ;  and  there  took  place 
the  most  intense  and  memorable  representa- 
tion of  John  Howard  Payne's  tragedy  of 
Brutus,  or  the  Roman  Father. 

The  playwright  found  rich  material  for  his 
work  in  history  and  in  literature.  Junius 
Brutus,  a  supposed  fool,  but  hiding  his  wit 
through  policy,  hears  from  Sextus  Tarquin 
his  confession  of  the  ravishment  of  Lucretia  ; 
and  breaks  out  upon  him  in  a  speech  of  fiery 
indignation.  Throwing  aside  the  mask  of 
folly,  Brutus  incites  his  countrymen  to  re- 
venge, and  to  the  extirpation  of  the  Tarquins. 
He  is  clothed  with  civil  and  military  power, 
and  vanquishes  the  enemy.  But  his  own 
son,  fighting  on  the  side  of  Tarquin,  is  taken 
prisoner.  Here  centres  the  chief  and  closing 
interest  of  the  play,  in  the  struggle  between 
the  duty  of  the  magistrate,  and  the  feelings 
of  the  father.  In  this  struggle  the  Roman 


BRUTUS.  169 

triumphs,  and  Brutus  condemns  his  son  to 
death.  The  play  has  supernatural  scenes, 
which  are  failures  ;  but  those  scenes  which 
turn  on  the  domestic  affections,  display  un- 
usual power.  We  believe  the  tragedy  was 
written  expressly  for  Mr.  Booth.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  author  was  an  intimate  and  ad- 
miring personal  friend  of  the  actor. 

Booth  enters  running,  and  is  called  by 
some  other  character  on  the  scene  to  minister 
to  his  amusement.  The  rounded  back,  the 
blank  face,  the  restless,  aimless  motion  of  the 
hands,  enacted  folly  to  the  life.  Moved  by 
his  evil  genius,  Tarquin  reports  for  pastime 
to  Brutus,  the  details  of  his  crime,  beginning 
with  the  remark  that  he  will  fill  the  fool  with 
wonder.  Brutus  replies  — 

"  You  can  say  nothing  that  would  make  me  wonder." 

Before  the  last  word  he  made  a  slight  pause, 
his  looks  grew  keen,  he  uttered  the  word 
"  wonder  "  with  an  ominous  and  penetrating 
accent,  then  leaned  to  listen. 

During  Tarquin's  recital,  Booth's  eyes 
kindled  with  a  strange  blue  light.  His  back 
straightened.  He  stood,  crowned  with  rea- 
son, and  on  fire  with  indignation ;  and  thus 


170  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

transformed  as  into  a  strong  avenging  angel 
(Tarquin's  story  done),  he  hurled  upon  him 
an  anathema,  the  agony  of  which  should  last 
"  millions  of  years." 

Never  shall  we  forget  that  speech.  Every 
fibre  of  his  frame  seemed  to  contribute  to 
swell  the  energy  of  his  voice.  And  all  the 
elements  of  his  voice  — 

"  Constringed  in  mass," 

burst  upon  the  astonished  and  terrified  offen- 
der. Nor  can  we  forget  Booth's  pale  and 
terrible  face,  nor  the  lightning  of  his  glance, 
nor  the  unexpected,  but  most  dramatic  move- 
ment which  supplemented  the  speech.  While 
speaking  he  stood  still,  towering  above  his 
victim ;  but  after  the  words  "  millions  of 
years,"  he  began  to  stride  down  the  stage. 
The  power  which  had  animated  his  voice  was 
transferred  to  his  action  ;  and  he  literally 
occupied  the  little  stage,  treading  it  trans- 
versely to  the  extreme  corner,  as  if  he  would 
pass  over  among  the  audience ;  then  turning 
abruptly,  he  strode  up  again  to  the  other  ex- 
treme, a  fearful  play  of  look  and  feature, 
betraying  meanwhile  a  silent,  inward,  grow- 
ing, and  tremendous  resolution. 


BRUTUS.  171 

We  next  find  him  in  the  public  square, 
addressing  the  citizens,  over  the  body  of 
Lucretia.  There  was  no  elocution  in  this 
speech.  It  was  rough  in  voice,  half  choked 
with  feelino;.  The  manner  was  at  the  farthest 

O 

remove  from  that  of  an  opera  singer,  listening 
to  his  own  musical  grief.  But  his  tones 
seemed  the  outcry  of  a  torn  and  bleeding 
heart,  and  in  them  a  noble  anger  strove 
with  and  finally  overmastered  the  softer  emo- 
tions. 

It  is  safe  to  affirm  that  no  passage  in  any 
performance  of  his,  either  in  or  out  of  Shake- 
speare, exhibited  a  greater  intensity  of  dra- 
matic conception,  or  a  more  thorough  accord 
of  utterance  and  action  than  did  the  closing 
scene  of  this  play.  The  Roman  costume  left 
head,  neck,  and  arms  bare.  There  might  be 
seen  swift  changes  of  color  ;  swifter  and  sub- 
tler movements  of  head  and  feature,  now 
quivering  and  writhing  with  emotion,  now 
fixed  in  immovable  resolve.  To  watch  this 
varied  movement  would  have  satisfied  the 
deaf.  To  listen  to  the  accompanying  tones, 
often  inarticulate  heart-cries,  wrung  thence 
by  the  passion  of  the  hour,  would  have  given 
mental  vision  to  the  blind. 


PESCARA. 

SHIEL,  in  his  play  of  the  "  Apostate," 
wrote  the  part  of  Pescai*a  for  Booth.  Booth 
responded,  by  creating  the  character  for 
Shiel:  that  is,  he  poured  into  its  ugly  and 
defective  mould  his  own  splendid  faculty  and 
abounding  life.  To  speak  the  interior  truth, 
we  think  both  parties  might  have  been  bet- 
ter employed,  Shiel  in  writing,  Booth  in  de- 
lineating; for  a  more  desperate  example  of 
inhuman  depravity  than  this  Pescara,  could 
scarcely  be  hunted  out  of  literature. 

If  it  be  said  lago  is  more  fiendish ;  we 
answer,  let  him  be  so.  The  difference  of  the 
two  characters  is  a  difference  of  kind.  lago 
is  an  intellectual  experiment  on  the  part  of 
a  capable  young  man  of  twenty-eight,  to  see 
how  successfully  he  can  play  the  game  of 
life,  leaving  God  entirely  out.  He  is  full 
of  subtlety,  and  many  parts  of  his  speeches, 
as  set  forth  by  the  unmatched  art  of  Shake- 
speare, might,  when  viewed  apart  from  his 
character,  shine  in  ethical  discourse.  Pes- 


PESCARA.  173 

cara,  on  the  contrary,  is  an  uninteresting 
villain,  ventilating  bad  passions  in  turgid 
rhetoric  ;  and  holding  the  attention  only  by 
a  cruel  force  of  will,  exercised  in  his  office 
as  governor  of  Granada. 

Probably,  there  worked  through  the  dull 
brain  of  the  author,  and  out  into  his  dark 
and  cruel  Spaniard,  some  dim  reminiscence 
of  Shakespeare's  "  super-subtle  Venetian." 
Certainly,  in  the  personation  of  Pescara, 
Booth  drew  off  some  of  that  spirit  which 
filled  his  lago,  adulterated  it  with  Shiel,  and 
offered  it  with  great  acceptance  to  the  rank 
palate  of  a  popular  audience  — 

"  Darkening  his  power  to  lend  base  subjects  light." 

Yet  the  flashing  and  magnetic  eye  ;  the  crisp, 
resonant,  and  changeful  tones ;  the  natural 
attitudes  of  easy  power  ;  the  lithe  strength 
in  action,  always  characteristic  of  Booth,  — 
lent  their  wonted  charm  to  this  performance 
also,  and  made  even  Pescara  yield  a  transi- 
tory delight. 

Two  sets  of  characters  figure  in  the  play  ; 
Moors  and  Christians.  Pescara  is  one  of  the 
Christians.  His  first  entrance  is  highly  dra- 
matic. Hemeya,  a  Moor,  and  his  successful 
rival,  is  saying  to  Florinda  — 


174  THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

"  Who  now  shall  part  us?  " 

"I,"  replies  Pescara,  entering.  Booth's 
action,  as  he  stepped  upon  the  scene,  had 
something  of  the  measured  force  of  his  first 
entrance  in  Richard,  and  something  of  the 
stealthy  tread  of  his  lago ;  while  the  word  he 
uttered,  gave  voice  in  one  little  syllable  to 
the  whole  malign  personality  of  the  char- 
acter. 

In  a  later  scene,  he  was  accustomed  to 
recount  a  dream  or  vision,  in  a  manner  des- 
perately vivid.  A  lady  of  much  histrionic 
excellence,  told  in  our  hearing,  how,  as 
Florinda,  in  this  scene,  she  involuntarily 
shrank  from  his  touch,  possessed  by  his  fero- 
cious aspect  and  resounding  voice.  But  he, 
with  that  conscious  and  tactile  delicacy, 
which  never  left  him,  even  when  most  filled 
with  the  inspiration  of  his  art,  in  a  few  low- 
toned  words  reassured  her,  and  proceeded 
without  a  moment's  pause,  to  possess  with 
his  vision  the  imagination  of  his  auditors. 
The  calm  directing  mind  sat  at  the  centre 
of  his  wildest  passion,  like  — 

"  The  whirlwind's  heart  of  peace." 


REUBEN   GLENROY. 

LET  us  touch  a  few  other  characters  with 
a  slight  pencil.  In  Colman's  play,  "  Town 
and  Country,"  Reuben,  accompanied  by 
Cosey,  is  seeking  his  lost  love  in  the  labyrinths 
of  London.  The  kind  old  man  makes  some 
casual  remark,  at  which  the  lover  winces. 

Cosey.     "  I  beg  pardon  for  bringing  her  to  your  mind." 
Reuben.    "  Bringing  —  her  —  to  my  mind  ?  " 

Booth  gave  the  first  word  with  a  pathetic 
ringing  clearness,  paused  slightly  before  and 
after  "  her,"  and  closed  the  sentence,  in  a 
manner  very  low,  clear,  and  quick  ;  most  ex- 
quisitely conveying  the  plain  meaning,  that 
she  was  always  in  his  mind. 


OCTAVIAN. 

OCTAVIAN,  in  the  "  Mountaineers,"  is  a  rag- 
ged and  melancholy  Spaniard,  of  high  birth 
and  breeding,  who  finds  his  love,  Floranthe, 
after  long  and  wretched  separation,  and  under 
extraordinary  circumstances. 

The  deep  joy  of  this  discovery  was  de- 
picted by  Mr.  Booth  with  a  tender  fullness 
of  expression  most  winning  to  the  popular 
heart.  We  also  recall  one  unique  gesture. 
He  locked  the  fingers  of  his  raised  hand 
within  the  fingers  of  Floranthe,  while  speak- 
ing,—  a  subtle  and  beautiful  diversion  on 

o* 

that  dangerous  thing,  the  stage  embrace. 

Booth  rarely  yielded  even  to  the  most 
vociferous  call  to  appear  before  the  curtain. 
On  one  occasion,  however,  in  Octavian,  at 
the  close  of  the  play,  he  came  towards  the 
footlights  as  the  curtain  was  descending,  let 
it  fall  behind  him,  was  still  atmosphered  by 
the  melancholy  beauty  of  the  character, 
bowed  to  the  audience,  and  silently  with- 
drew. 


BERTRAM. 

CLERGYMEN  are  seldom  good  playwrights  : 
witness  the  "  Zanga  "  of  Dr.  Young,  the  "  Cat- 
aline  "  of  Mr.  Croly.  The  old  feud  between 
the  pulpit  and  the  stage  makes  it  difficult  for 
any  combatant  to  fight,  either  for  love,  or 
fame,  or  hire,  successfully  on  both  sides. 
The  didactic  and  the  dramatic  methods  of 
presenting  truth,  lie  respectively  at  opposite 
poles :  and  an  author  is  determined  by 
native  temperament  or  mental  constitution 
towards  either  one  or  the  other  method,  but 
never  towards  both. 

Let  this  view  furnish  what  excuse  it  may 
for  the  Reverend  J.  Maturin,  who  wrote  the 
wretched  tragedy  of  "  Bertram."  The  play  is 
a  little  worse  than  the  "  Apostate,"  and  that  is 
highly  unnecessary.  Morbid  passion,  adul- 
tery, murder,  suicide,  mark  its  criminal  prog- 
ress ;  and  it  is  choked  by  a  throng  of  incon- 
gruous and  unnatural  incidents. 

Bad  as  the  play  is,  Booth  descended  occa- 
sionally to  its  level,  and  by  the  touch  of  his 

12 


178  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

histrionic  genius,  stirred  its  corruption  into 
a  transient  phosphorescent  brilliancy.  To 
Bertram,  as  to  Pescara,  he  contributed  him- 
self; and  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  consum- 
mate art,  we  sometimes  happily  lost  sight  of 
the  author. 

Bertram  is  picked  up  from  a  wreck  and 
borne  in  on  men's  shoulders,  as  one  drowned. 
In  his  slow  recovery  of  consciousness,  Mr. 
Booth  took  the  spectator  with  him.  One 
could  almost  feel  the  partial  flow  and  quick 
ebb  of  the  vital  current ;  and  the  intermit- 
tent thrill  of  life  to  his  extremities.  He  de- 
livered such  passages  as  — 

"  No  dews  from  Heaven  fall  on  this  blighted  soil," 

and  — 

"  I  have  offended  Heaven,  I  will  not  mock  it," 

with  a  melancholy,  undeserved,  Byronic 
grace.  We  find  nothing  else  in  this  play 
worthy  to  illustrate  our  subject. 


PIERRE. 

MR.  BOOTH'S  Pierre,  in  Otway's  tragedy 
of  "  Venice  Preserved,"  was  distinguished  by- 
one  salient  passage  of  extraordinary  energy 
and  clearness.  He  is  urging  his  fellow  con- 
spirators to  fire  the  city  of  Venice.  He 
stood  with  his  back  to  the  audience,  appeal- 
ing with  fierce  eloquence  to  each  one  of  his 
companions  in  turn.  Well  do  we  remember 
his  transport  at  the  vision  of — 

"  The  Adriatic  in  her  robes  of  flame." 

The  last  performance  of  this  part  that  we 
recall,  took  place  at  the  Howard  Atheneum 
in  Boston,  about  the  year  1847.  After  the 
play,  we  met  a  gentleman,  ripe  in  years  and 
culture,  who  had  known  Mr.  Booth  through- 
out his  career,  and  who  said  he  had  never 
seen  him  exhibit  more  beauty  or  clearness 
of  voice  and  gesture,  than  on  this  occasion. 
The  remark  acquires  value,  in  view  of  the 
"  blown  surmise,"  that  the  actor's  voice,  if 
not  his  general  histrionic  power,  had  become 
impaired  by  the  accident  to  his  face. 


THE  STRANGER. 

OF  Kotzebue's  play,  entitled  "  The  Stran- 
ger, or  Misanthropy  and  Repentance,"  only 
this  remains  :  the  piquant  tone  and  gesture 
with  which  he  said  — 

"Whea  they  see  me  with  my  runaway  wife  upon  my  arm." 

In  considering  this  play,  so  weak  and  so  un- 
worthy of  representation,  the  question  natu- 
rally arises,  why  did  not  Mr.  Booth  enact 
Timon?  We  suppose  the  managers  might 
have  answered.  We  can  only  regret  that  he 
did  not  add  this  mighty  figure  to  his  Shake- 
spearean gallery.  We  can  only  fancy  the 
large  and  hospitable  style  he  might  have  lent 
to  the  beginning  of  the  play  ;  his  impetuous 
scorn  when  the  tide  of  prosperity  is  turning, 
and  the  isolated  majesty  of  mien  and  voice, 
becoming  the  sullen  grandeur  of  the  closing 
scenes. 


THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

IN  the  exercise  of  the  most  effective  and 
inclusive,  if  not  the  most  exalted  of  the  fine 
arts,  the  art  of  acting,  Mr.  Booth's  method 
was 

"  Unremovably  coupled  to  nature." 

The  term  "  theatrical,"  invidiously  used, 
could  never  be  justly  applied  to  him.  Nature 
was  the  deep  source  of  his  power ;  and  she 
imparted  her  own  perpetual  freshness  to  his 
personations.  We  could  not  tire  of  him,  any 
more  than  we  tire  of  her.  His  art  was,  in  a 
high  sense,  as  natural  as  the  bend  of  Niagara ; 
as  the  poise  and  drift  of  summer  clouds  ;  the 
play  of  lightning ;  the  play  of  children ;  or 
as  the  sea,  storm-tossed,  sunlit,  moonlit,  or 
brooded  in  mysterious  calm — and  his  art 
awakened  in  the  observer  corresponding 
emotions. 


AN  INCIDENT. 

GARRICK,  in  addition  to  his  other  gifts,  was 
an  admirable  dancer.  Kean  danced  ;  he  also 
sang  exquisitely,  employing  a  faculty  not  un- 
common with  rough-speaking  men.  Booth 
could  neither  dance  nor  sing.  The  single 
comic  song  with  which  he  enlivened  his  per- 
formance in  farce,  was  simply  a  grotesque 
jingle,  scorning  melody,  and  depending  for 
its  success  on  odd  turns  of  expression,  verbal 
and  vocal.  We  recall  a  true  incident,  show- 
ing his  characteristic  admiration  of  a  talent 
he  did  not  possess. 

After  a  splendid  success  in  tragedy,  he 
stood  at  the  wing  (as  at  other  times,  on  going 
behind  the  scenes,  we  have  seen  him  stand), 
with  folded  arms,  in  the  dress  of  the  charac- 
ter he  had  just  personated,  and  listening  in- 
tently to  an  excellent  singer,  then  before  the 
audience.  Unable  to  congratulate  him  at  the 
time,  Booth  sought  and  found  the  singer, 
later  in  the  night,  at  a  refreshment  room  in 
company  with  other  actors.  Booth  entered 


AN  INCIDENT.  183 

the  room,  silently  stretched  himself  at  full 
length  upon  the  sanded  floor,  took  one  of  the 
singer's  feet,  placed  it  upon  his  own  neck, 
held  it  so  a  few  moments,  then  rose  and  de- 
parted without  word. 


A  DIALOGUE. 

SCENE.  —  A  hotel  chamber,  dimly  lighted.  Time  — 
summer  evening.  Mr.  Booth  discovered  sitting  at  an 
open  window,  smoking.  A  glazed  cap,  and  a  round- 
about formed  a  part  of  his  dress,  giving  him  the  appear- 
ance of  a  "  Middy  Ashore"  Enter  Guest.  Inter- 
change of  salutations  and  courtesies. 

Cruest.  I  saw  your  "  Sir  Giles  "  last  eve- 
ning. How  do  you  manage  to  carry  the 
scene  so  smoothly,  with  such  weak  support  ? 

Actor.  By  close  attention  to  the  business 
of  the  stage. 

Gruest.  But  you  seemed  to  lose  yourself  in 
your  impersonation. 

Actor.  Else  how  could  I  identify  charac- 
ter? 

Cruest.  And  can  you  keep  up  these  two 
diverse  processes  of  thought  at  the  same 
time? 

Actor.  Nothing  easier  —  after  the  machin- 
ery is  oiled.  In  one  view,  that  is  a  strange 
play,  —  "A  New  Way  to  pay  Old  Debts,"  — 
not  one  honest  person  in  it.  They  are  all 


A  DIALOGUE.  185 

rogues  from  beginning  to  end  ;  rogues  for 
virtue,  rogues  in  vice.  Shakespeare  drew  the 
foibles  of  the  good ;  but  he  never  blurred  the 
lines,  by  making  the  good  counterplot  against 
the  villains.  Did  you  see  how  near  they  came 
to  letting  Shakespeare's  birthplace  slip  into 
the  hands  of  a  Yankee  speculator  ?  I  once 
saw,  on  the  23d  of  April,  the  whole  way  from 
London  to  Stratford  lined  with  flowers,  in 
honor  of  the  poet.  They  should  preserve 
every  vestige  of  him. 

G-uest  (Murmurs  the  title  of  a  book  then 
popular).  "  Vestiges  of  Creation." 

Actor  (Catching  the  allusion,  instantly  re- 
joins). Yes,  he  was  the  god  of  the  histrionic 
art  in  England.  Can  you  tell  me  whether 
Howard  Payne  be  still  living  ? 

Cruest.  I  cannot.  But  I  recall  a  Ion  mot 
upon  him,  made  by  some  London  critics,  who 
"  cut  up  "  his  tragedy  of  Brutus.  The  author 
was  indiscreet  enough  to  retort  through  the 
press.  Whereupon  the  critics  rejoined,  — 

"  The  labor  we  delight  in,  physics  Payne." 
and  turned  the  laugh  on  him.     Mr.  Booth, 
did  you  ever  read  in  public  ? 

Actor.  Reading  is  emasculate  acting.  The 
drama  should  never  be  so  treated.  (Then 


186  THE   TRAGEDIAN. 

added,  smiling)  I  did  attempt  it  once.  I 
read  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  at  the  Chatham 
Street  Theatre  in  New  York.  But  the  read- 
ing was  a  failure.  The  boys  were  cracking 
nuts  and  calling  out  to  each  other,  "  Hi ! 
hi  I  "  all  over  the  house. 

Cruest.  I  fear  your  audience  was  of  similar 
quality  to  those  sailors,  who  are  said  to  have 
bought  up  the  first  edition  of  the  poem,  out  of 
regard  to  the  name.  But  they  soon  became 
disgusted  with  the  purchase.  They  couldn't 
fathom  the  meaning.  "  I  would  I  had  been 
there,"  and  heard  your  reading,  even  with 
the  "  Hi !  hi !  "  accompaniment. 

Actor  (whiff,  whiff,  in  silence). 

Cruest.  How  vivid  the  imagery,  how  allur- 
ing the  measure  of  that  remarkable  poem. 

"  The  fair  breeze  blew,  the  white  foam  flew; 
The  furrow  followed  free." 

Actor  (continuing  the  verse). 

"  We  were  the  first  that  ever  burst, 
Into  that  silent  sea !  " 

Cruest  (Listens  patiently,  but  hears  no 
more  of  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  that  night. 
The  actor  was  "not  i'  the  vein  "). 

Actor.  The  reports  about  Rachel  interest 
me  greatly.  She  has  become  famous  since 


A  DIALOGUE.  187 

my  last  visit  to  Europe.  The  French  style, 
even  in  the  antiquated  tragedy  of  Racine,  is 
closer  to  nature  than  ours. 

Guest.  Is  she  a  Jewess  ? 

Actor.  Juive  Francaise  (with  exquisite 
purity  of  accent).  By  the  way,  this  is  the 
first  Jewish  month  (September). 

Guest  takes  leave. 

Actor.  Come  down  with  me  to  supper; 
come,  take  a  bit.  I'm  going  in  (on  the 
stairs).  Come  now,  you'd  better  take  a  bit. 

Guest  declines,  bids  good-night,  and  sees 
the  actor  pass  across  the  hall,  and  out  of 
sight,  with  his  natural  and  kingly  stride. 


THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

His  knowledge  and  accent  of  the  French 
tongue  were  simply  perfect.  He  played 
Oreste*  in  Racine's  tragedy,  "  Andromaque," 
at  the  French  Theatre  in  New  Orleans, 
repeatedly,  and  in  a  manner  to  rouse  the 
wildest  enthusiasm.  Frenchmen  of  that  city 
speak  of  him  to  this  day,  as  a  second  Talma. 


MEETING  on  one  occasion,  at  the  house  of 
the  late  Governor  Andrew,  a  select  company 
of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  the  talk  turned  on 
the  stage  and  the  drama,  and  was  varied  by 
imitations  running  up  into  the  region  of 
Shakespearean  criticism.  The  Reverend  Mr. 
Clarke,  who  was  present,  related  an  adven- 
ture he  had  with  Mr.  Booth  in  Louisville. 
His  recital  was  the  germ  of  an  excellent 
paper,  which  has  since  appeared  in  the  At- 
lantic Monthly.  At  the  close  of  the  inter- 
view therein  described,  and  which  appears  so 


THE  TRAGEDIAN.  189 

full  of  histrionic,  eccentric,  and  psychological 
interest,  the  player  told  the  preacher  that  he 
had  called  on  him  as  a  Unitarian,  a  mono- 
theist,  himself  being  a  Jew.  Whether  the 
latter  statement  referred  to  race  or  religion, 
is  left  a  little  uncertain. 

Nothing  can  be  surer,  however,  than  that 
Mr.  Booth's  mind  was  deeply  exercised  by 
religious  problems  ;  by  "  obstinate  question- 
ings "  of  futurity  and  human  destiny.  The 
chance  companions  of  his  convivial  hours,  or 
even  the  thrilled  auditor  and  spectator  of  his 
matchless  impersonations,  could  have  had 
little  conception  of  this,  his  private  and  ha- 
bitual mood. 

He  passed  into  all  religions  with  a  certain 
humility  and  humanity,  and,  we  may  add, 
with  a  certain  Shakespearean  impartiality. 
Among  Jews,  he  was  counted  a  Jew.  He 
was  as  familiar  with  the  Koran  as  with  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  would  name  a  child 
of  his  after  a  wife  of  Mahomet.  At  other 
times,  and  in  sympathy  with  his  favorite  poet, 
Shelley,  he  delighted  to  lose  himself  in  the 
mysticism  of  the  faiths  of  India. 


THE  TRAGEDIAN. 

p 

IN  recording  our  impressions  of  him,  who, 
if  power  of  identification  be  the  actor's  su- 
preme gift,  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all 
actors,  we  have  lived  over  again  hours  of  rare 
aesthetic  delight.  We  indulge  the  hope  that 
this  happiness  has  been  in  some  measure 
communicated  to  the  reader. 

But  the  play  is  over.  The  curtain  has  fal- 
len ;  the  actor  vanished.  His  voice  is  hushed. 
Its  wild  bell  has  died  upon  the  air.  His  eye 
is  quenched.  No  more  shall  the  quick  im- 
agination of  Shakespeare, — 

"  Fill  its  blue  urn  with  fire." 

That  organization,  so  elastic,  firm,  dense, 
fibrous,  delicate,  has  become  a  pinch  of  dust. 
Yet  remains  the  indestructible  hope,  that, 
out  of  the  — 

"  Abysmal  deeps  of  personality," 

—  how,  when,  or  under  what  aspect,  who  can 
tell  ?  —  himself  shall  arise  immortal  and 
sacred  still  to  the  beneficent  ministry  of 
beauty. 


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